good morning and welcome to the garden of the deanery in canterbury cathedral on this saturday the 19th of december as we come to say our morning prayers together wherever you are in the world please feel welcome and as i always say bring your own concerns at this time when certainly in europe the pandemic seems to be increasing and extra measures are having to be taken by governments so that we have to be very careful to keep each other safe it's actually been a fairly awful morning up to now lots and lots of wind and rain and we've found a little spot when there's no rain but it'll probably start pouring soon but the the pigs have come up to their orchard and so we've got the four girls with spotty leading the way nearest to you and uh kemi here at the back and they're having a great time so we think of this day as the third of the antiphons of advent and the third one is oh radix yesse a root of jesse standing as a sign among the peoples before you kings will shut their mouths to you the nations will make their prayer come and deliver us and delay no longer and much of that imagery is taken from the prophet isaiah with romans 15 chapter chapter 15 verse 12 there as well these are images and signs to give titles of adoration and welcome to the coming of christ in our minds in glory but step by step towards christmas and the coming of christ as a child at bethlehem on this day the 19th of december we remember that in 1154 king henry ii was crowned king in westminster abbey his reign was to prove very significant for canterbury because of his own part within the tragic martyrdom of thomas beckett and also his reign thereafter in 1606 on this day three ships set sail from kent the susan constant the godspeed and the discovery to establish a colony in jamestown virginia which would become the first of the 13 colonies which became the united states and a group of us remember going to jamestown in 2007 to remember the 400th anniversary of that uh um founding of the colony and and emergency queen elizabeth ii was amongst those who came to that very memorable event which was hosted by what we call the commonwealths of virginia in 1783 william pitt became the youngest british prime minister ever at the age of 24 a very significant spell of ministerial office because of course he was the one who uh bore the brunt of most of the napoleonic wars until his own death at in uh 1804 or five and then uh in 1851 the artist very famous both in oils and watercolors joseph turner died 1915 british australian and new zealand troops began to withdraw from gallipoli having failed to defeat the turkish army and in 1932 the bbc world service began we'll come back to that as we shall also come back to the death of emily bronte who died on this day age 30 in 1848 but for the moment let's begin our prayers 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 and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen i'm sitting here in the orchard on this dark morning beside our tree for today which is the gelder rose here it is leafless beside me around our silver birch and downey birch the big tree there and covered in leaves still the hazel but the gelder leafless and the gelder's really only been called a gelder for 200 years a gelder rose it came that name came from holland but before that it was known as the red elder or the water elder and we rejoice in its flowering as well as its leafing in springtime and so we'll look forward to all of that for the moment we give thanks for all the properties of this tree throughout the ages which you can read on our tree meditation if you click that particular link so now let's say our psalm which on this morning of the month is psalm 96 sing to the lord a new song sing to the lord all the earth sing to the lord bless his name tell out his salvation from day to day declare his glory among the nations and his wonders among all peoples for great is the lord and greatly to be praised he is more to be feared than all gods for all the gods of the nations are but idols it is the lord who made the heavens honor and majesty are before him power and splendor are in his sanctuary ascribe to the lord you families of the peoples ascribe to the lord honor and strength ascribe to the lord the honor due to his name bring offerings and come into his courts o worship the lord in the beauty of holiness let the whole earth tremble before him tell it out among the nations that the lord is king he has made the world so firm that it cannot be moved he will judge the peoples with equity let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad let the sea thunder and all that is in it let the fields be joyful and all that is in them let all the trees of the wood shout for joy before the lord for he comes he comes to judge the earth with righteousness he will judge the world and the peoples with his truth a wonderful meditation by the psalmist on all of nature seeming to shout out in praise before the lord and we give thanks for that ourselves on this morning of rain and also trees going into their winter sleep before they sprout out again in good flowers and leaves to give joy before the lord having had their winter rest so now we're going to read this morning the whole of i think the shortest book in the bible and it is an extraordinary book it came very late to be accepted in the canon of scripture and we'll talk about it afterwards but uh as you know my policy is not to be afraid to open any page of the scriptures and read through it with a measure of understanding and also taking here and there seeds for spiritual reflection but this book is shall we say extraordinary and it's the letter of jude as we say in the english bible in fact in the greek the name judas for judas iscariot or this judas is exactly the same but jude is put here i think because that then distinguishes it from the name of of the judas iscariot that we know but in fact the writer identifies himself as the brother of james the just the brother of our lord jesus christ and also in the list of the brothers who are with jesus in the synagogue on that day when he goes to synagogue in in galilee or when his mother and brothers come to find him the list of brothers includes james and judas and here this brother of our lord identifies himself jude a servant of jesus christ and brother of james to those who are called beloved in god the father and kept for jesus christ may mercy peace and love be multiplied to you beloved although i was very eager to write to you about our common salvation i found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation ungodly people who pervert the grace of our god into sensuality and deny our only master and lord jesus christ now i want to remind you although you once fully knew it that jesus who saved a people out of the land of egypt afterwards destroyed those who did not believe and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day just as sodom and gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued the flesh serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire yet in like manner these people also relying on their dreams defile the flesh reject authority and blaspheme the glorious ones but when the archangel michael contending with the devil was disputing about the body of moses he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment but said the lord rebuked you but these people blaspheme all that they do not understand and they are destroyed by all that they like and reasoning and animals understand instinctively woe to them for they walked in the way of cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to balaam's error and perished in cora's rebellion these are hidden reefs at your love feasts as they feast with you without fear shepherds feeding themselves waterless clouds swept along by winds fruitless trees in late autumn twice dead uprooted wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever it was also about these that enoch the seventh from adam prophesied saying behold the lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him these are grumblers malcontents following their own sinful desires they are loud mouth boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage but you must remember beloved the predictions of the apostles of our lord jesus christ they said to you in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions it is these who cause divisions worldly people devoid of the spirit but you beloved building yourselves up in your most holy face and praying in the holy spirit keep yourselves in the love of god waiting for the mercy of our lord jesus christ that leads to eternal life and have mercy on those who doubt save others by snatching them out of the fire to others show mercy with fear hating even the garments stained by the flesh and now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy to the only god our savior through jesus christ our lord be glory majesty dominion and authority before all time and now and forever amen well what an extraordinary letter and many believe that to have been written quite late because it makes reference to the other apostles and quotes some of the things that they are saying it's obvious obviously written at a time when uh whoever is writing this is terrified of a a a kind of of uh should we call it heresy coming into the church it's not written to any particular church so when this person says beloved it's shall we say a habit of letter writing it's not as if paul is writing to the thessalonians or the philippians and knowing them and calling them his beloved this is simply a way of addressing and also there was a convention of writing under another name to give something authority so many scholars accept this as being a very late piece of writing dealing with dangers that the church was facing from gnostic heresies but at the same time the center of this is a very angry letter and is referencing all kinds of books like the book of enoch which is not even found in the jewish scriptures and yet people would have known it and these these references uh of of strange things like the archangel michael uh disputing with the devil over the body of moses because the the devil had said this body is mine because he murdered an egyptian and the archangel in instead of blasting satan it's very courteous with him and says the lord rebuked you for saying that that there are interesting little snatches here but the one thing that we do have in that lovely last part is a benediction uh which we're used to and i'll read it again because you'll know it now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy to the only god our savior through jesus christ our lord be glory majesty dominion or authority before all time and now and forever are men this book was only admitted into the collection of books which the church was building up as what we call the canon of the new testament really from the mid-4th century onwards at first at the council of laodicea which sort of identified the books and there are many books which when one reads them are much more should we say edifying like the letter of clement but at the same time we find this here and we have to deal with the fact that the church clearly was facing something which caused enormous distress and anger in this particular writer wonderful imagery and metaphors of those with whom he disagreed and the way in which they haunted the love feasts which i meant i imagine meant sitting down at the eucharist with with other christians as they broke bread shepherds feeding themselves waterless clouds swept along by wind fruitless trees in late autumn wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever wonderful metaphors the wandering stars were the planets who which seemed to be to to people looking up stars that had wandered out of their course somehow and were trying to find their way around in that point of astronomy for some of the peoples at that time all of those things but then again the call to persevere which comes between verses 17 and 23 is much more gentle and in that there is the sense of mercy and understanding but also uh a denouncing of those who try to cause divisions it's interesting to see the life of the early church which we glean from st paul as well but uh we've read through that letter and it gives us just a snippet of the kind of passion that people had when facing heresy so whenever this was written and whoever wrote it it's a a stone as the church builds its foundation up which came late and found its way in just as the book of revelation was accepted quite late and here we are i wanted just to look at the way in which the two dates that i mentioned have affected us and the first one is the bbc world service which began in 1932. we're communicating with each other in this way and the lockdown seems to be getting more severe day by day but we can keep in touch and say our prayers together through the agency of being online and pre-recording and allowing you to to see things whenever you would like wherever you are in the world and at whatever time of day you'd like to do so the bbc world service when that opened up became an absolute lifesaver for those who wanted to keep contact and especially for people from this nation who were serving elsewhere how many times on shortwave radio in the depths of the southern sudan without any other contact we had those radios used to wind up to get power and uh you would hear this is london and then lilly balero and instantly you were at home and in the same way we're contacting each other in this way much of our christmas may have to be just like that and the bbc world service set itself to give the very best of drama and news and music and programs that could be broadcast around the world to those not only from the united kingdom or in those lands where english was spoken but everywhere for people who wanted simply to hear and enjoy that world service and we still give thanks for it but also on this day as i said earlier on uh in 1848 emily bronte died i don't know whether you've ever been to powers the retreat in in yorkshire where the the her father actually lived um but when you go there it was an enormous uh surprise to me when i went there i'd imagine that house would be much much bigger and in fact it's quite a small house and when you think of the four creative children of the the rector their father he he lost his wife his two elder daughters died and emily and ann and charlotte and their brother branwell were left and each was in their own way creative creative in the most marvelous way but the little sitting room in which the table is where they did their work meant that most of their work came from imagination and emily bronte is known for just the one work and also some poems that were published but the one work is watering heights and in a way i know that kathy and heathcliff and all the life it thrash cross grange and at wuthering heights itself is is very much uh the the the cast list of of this story but the more with its heathers and kathy's delight in the moor emulated emily's own nature whenever she was away from home she was sad she desperately missed the moors and came back and one sinks of these creative children going through all kinds of distresses losing their mother and their elder sisters and yet at the same time being creative for us i think the black and white film made in 1939 with lawrence olivier and merle oberon and david niven of wuthering heights with that wonderful cathy's theme music going through it was probably one of the first black and white films on the old television at home that imprinted itself on my consciousness and i find it very hard to think of any other film or to think of anyone else as heathcliff apart from lawrence olivier but when kathy is is torn between the life of thrush cross grange with all its all its sophistication and the more and heathcliff for heathcliff really represents all of that then that kind of tension is something which the imagination of emily bronte gives to us and in the background all the time in this rhythm of life mr bronte was ministering to his people and tending to them in this poor area and burying members of his own family tending to branwell when he died and tending to emily when she died and when anne died and finally charlotte died and one thinks of the services of the book of common prayer and the reading of the scriptures going on in the background while this life of imagination there was faithfulness to home that life of imagination spread in pictures and gave them all to us as well the kind of human passions and human tensions and all of that in a way with all those natural images we found in the epistle to jude this morning but we give thanks for every kind of human creativity for the imagination to think and explore for emily bronte's enormous love of creation and her her her great companion keeper her dog who seemed to understand her better than any human being and was the chief mourner we're told at her funeral so let's give thanks for all creativity let's remember that in time past consumption as they called it the tuberculosis we would call it now and typhoid with dreadful drains in houses caused enormous death within families and the pandemic that we're fighting now in protecting one another with a background to our rhythmic prayers is no different in one way than what families like the brontes had to face at that time too so for the communication across the world that the bbc world service represents and began its work on this day and the kind of imagination which with very few resources the bronte family were able to give us we go forward step by step towards 2021 and are determined to keep each other safe to make that a new beginning or let's say our prayers on this particular day and we are on the 19th of december so we're thinking of the diocese of south wenzori in uganda and jackson zerabende the bishop there and the diocese of enugu in nigeria and emmanuel chukwumu the bishop there and his people and the diocese of enugu north in nigeria and sosthanis eze the bishop there and his people here in the diocese of canterbury we are uh asked to reflect on living advent well well by our rhythmic prayers and are watching and waiting and reflecting on the scriptures we're doing just that and we are trying very hard to look after one another right across the world as nations and within communities and within families as we prepare for christmas so we say our prayers on this day and pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and for any whom you would want to pray for on this day here for the last time is the collect for this uh third week of advent o 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 in 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 amen the collect for advent 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 visit us in great humility that in the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick 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 amen so we say the prayer our lord jesus christ taught us to say in whatever language we like to say it 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 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 well we miss the rain and not only have we had the pigs with us but also a lovely english robin who's accompanied all our worship today flitting from tree to tree with his red breast very much a winter bird and a winter companion we're going to take the pigs now into their their little run with its fresh grass that they can enjoy for the day before we take them back to winston and the boys down in their usual home so we'll take them on enjoy your day all