good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this sunday the 21st of november this is the last sunday of the christian year next sunday advent sunday begins another christian year and on this sunday we keep the feast of christ the king that feast speaks of the power and dominion of the creator over all things and the position of the uh eternal word within the holy trinity the glory of that absolute power of the creator and the feast of christ the king lifts our perception of the humanity and divinity of the anointed one the christ on this last day it's a fairly modern feast it was inserted in the 20th century gradually simply to give a glorious end to the christian year before we begin again before it was called in the common parlance stir up sunday and still that stir up collect is there to get us ready for next week and people used on this day to mix their christmas puddings ready for the festival of christmas stir up we beseech you oh lord the wills of your faithful people that prayer is still there but it is the feast of christ the king so we've exchanged the gold of the cottonus bush which we were using yesterday to remind us of the burning bush but also of the blazing anger of moses and the sense of the golden calf and the people's unfaithfulness we've replaced all that with the gold of this beautiful acer tree and the forsythia which you'll see on this morning when we think of the glory of christ and also the power of the creator this is a day when we pray for many nations many nations in europe are suffering from tensions caused by governments having to impose lockdowns again we think of the netherlands and the the austrian government in vienna one can go around europe to find those tension spots but this is a difficult time for leaders and decision making and keeping people safe and encouraging vaccines and all the things we do to keep each other safe at this time when the pandemic is still very much a factor for humankind across the world and in thinking of nations let's think of something a bit more cheerful uh we've just been enjoying uh here in europe the nation's autumn cup in rugby and that's caused southern nations northern hemisphere nations all to come together in a wonderful competition a friendly competition but nevertheless massive excitement still and yesterday and the day before have i've seen some of that excitement so that yesterday was a time when uh we were watching various matches and we've had over the weekend uh england playing south africa the champions of the world and defeating them by just one point went right right to the edge and fetch's excitement just knew no bounds he's a determined rugby enthusiast we've also seen wales play australia and and again a very very close match and we've seen france play new zealand and that too was a real contest but france by fine rugby won and now as this is closing many nations will be going home to a sense of disappointment but the friendly competition which this was was something which just highlighted that the way that nations can come together and we we think of those nations who have traveled across the world to be here many of them had been uh in a bubble together since june and now they'll go home and have to quarantine again before they see their families so for those with disappointment in sport because of losing matches well let's think of the enormous pleasure that's been given by nations coming together in that way at this autumn time of year before the new year begins and a new calendar of sporting events begins all over again let's begin our prayers then on this day the feast of christ the king oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your throne has been established from of old you are from everlasting alleluia blessed are you lord of heaven and earth to you be glory and praise forever from the darkness of death you have raised your christ to the right hand of your majesty on high the pioneer of our faith his passion accomplished open for us the way to heaven and sends on the promised spirit may we be ready to follow the way and so be brought to the glory of his presence where songs of triumph forever sound 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 you hear that the great bell dunstan ringing for one of the morning services on this sunday morning as we continue with our psalm 105 long psalms so we'll read some verses from that this morning oh give thanks to the lord and call upon his name make known his deeds among the peoples sing to him sing praises and tell of all his marvelous works rejoice in the praise of his holy name let the hearts of them rejoice who seek the lord seek the lord and his strength seek his face continually remember the marvels he has done his wonders and the judgments of his mouth oh seed of abraham his servant o children of jacob his chosen he is the lord our god his judgments are in all the earth he has always been mindful of his covenant the promise that he made for a thousand generations the covenant he made with abraham the oath that he swore to isaac which he established as a statute for jacob an everlasting covenant for israel he brought his people out of egypt with silver and gold there was not one of them their tribes that stumbled egypt was glad at their departing for a dread of them had fallen upon them he spread out a cloud for a covering and a fire to light up the night they asked and he brought them quails he satisfied them with the bread of heaven he opened the rock and the waters gushed out and ran in the dry places like a river for he remembered his holy word and abraham his servant so he brought his people forth with joy his chosen ones with singing he gave them the lands of the nations and they took possession of the fruit of their toil that they might keep his statutes and faithfully observe his laws alleluia there are many lessons we could read today at the feast of christ the king we're going to read one from mark chapter 10 and beginning at verse 35 this is all about the shall we say different perceptions of what glory means and what being someone who is a leader means within the context of human life when the qualities of the kingdom of heaven are shown and you will recognize the passage i'm sure mark chapter 10 verse 35 and james and john the sons of zebedee came up to jesus and said to him teacher we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you and jesus said to them what do you want me to do for you and they said to him grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory jesus said to them you do not know what you are asking are you able to drink the cup that i drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which i am baptized and they said to him we are able and jesus said to them the cup that i drink you will drink and with the baptism with which i am baptized you will be baptized but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant but it is for those for whom it has been prepared now when the ten heard it they began to be indignant at james and john and jesus called them to him and said to them you know that those who are considered rulers of the gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them but it shall not be so among you but whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be the willing slave of all for even the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many that passage in st mark's gospel opens up to us the way in which jesus himself is resistant to any title which calls him king for king is so easy to misinterpret in worldly terms and so he teaches the disciples what kind of concept the son of man has as the one who is if you want king of kings and lord of lords in an eternal dimension not in an earthly dimension it takes us instantly to that passage where jesus is conversing with pilate pontius pilate the roman governor in the gospel of saint john jesus standing before pilate and the charge brought by those of his own people is not involving the word king they are more interested in the blasphemy of his as they say affirming himself to be the anointed one the christ but pilate won't understand that and the charge which will stick if they want to end the life of jesus of nazareth is a political charge which counters the power the imperial power of great caesar the emperor himself and pilate takes that up for it's the only kind of power he understands and he says to jesus are you the king of the jews and jesus answers and i like the translation which the new english bible gave it it's a paraphrase but it's i think gives it gives the right kind of flavor to what jesus's answer is like jesus looking the governor in the eye says king is your word i came to bear witness to the truth and one then goes in the gospel of saint mark to his preferred title as the representative of our humanity and the gift which the creator is giving to enter into the qualities of the kingdom of heaven and all that that means in eternal words which can be reflected here on earth by those who are leaders and who serve their people and by us one another not taking on authority of of of a despotic kind over one another but one which serves the needs and leads in that way and as we think of that we go perhaps to another passage in saint john's gospel when jesus has fed the 5 000 and the fragments have been taken up and then there is that verse which said jesus was nervous that they were coming to make him king and he went away and in seclusion hid himself for that was not the vocation oh the word is there in the beginning of the gospel of saint matthew the magi the wise again who are used to earthly titles titles of glory and come to another earthly ruler herod and the wise men come and stand before herod and says where is he who is born to be king of the jews and the moment that title is presented to another earthly ruler who himself carries that title there is great fear for herod only knows the kind of authority which imposes itself on people often with violence and with no concern for their welfare whatsoever and that becomes very apparent in the story of the wise men and herod and what herod is seeking when he secretly tricks the wise men to go and find the one who has been born for him and to return to their testimony to the fact of where that person is so that the baby can be killed and that passage of course where is he who is born to be king of the jews but you search in vain in the way in which the titles that jesus accepts are used and you find nowhere there that title of kingship in earthly terms so this is a feast of enormous glory but it's speaking of the quality of the kingdom we can use it there of heaven the greek word for king which pilate uses basilius is not one that jesus embraces nor would be the latin word which pilate writes on the cross we heard that it was written in latin and greek and hebrew rex no that's not a word that jesus accepts because of the way in which it can be so misinterpreted by those to whom the gospel will be taken in gentile lands as well as amongst the jewish people themselves remember how even the prophet samuel warned the people against wrong concepts of sovereignty and right concepts of sovereignty and the qualities of the kingdom of heaven which this feast is all about are ones that we attempt to embrace daily all the parables when jesus is giving us earthly images and there are many images as we've used of the leaves of gold here today images uh i see that the passion flower is still hanging over the leaves of gold its leaves mostly still green and there are passion flowers still to come but these are images from the earth speaking of the qualities of the kingdom of heaven and we've used so many the way in which jesus would point to olive trees or fig trees or the way in which he uses leaven mixing with the flower in order that the whole dough may be leavened and all those earthly images always in our english language have the word the the kingdom of heaven is like never is for there is nothing on us that can give it in its perfection except the offering of himself which jesus says to james and john is the true gateway to them being at his right and his left in glory they won't be the only ones there but they would have had to have drunk the cup that he drinks and be baptism baptized with the baptism with which he was baptized and their willingness at that time to represent the twelve and themselves of course to say yes we can do that and jesus is foreseeing as they approach jerusalem where that conversation happens that there's much testing to take place yet of the 12 and much testing to take place of those who follow him who take up their cross and follow him throughout the ages still to come this is the end of a christian year and ends cause us to look back and shall we say review often in penitence but always with thanksgiving what has happened during that christian year since we were here together as a garden congregation last year on the feast of christ the king and it's a time of not only looking back but as we always say with our god who is a god of the present tense and our savior who is the one who says i am in the present tense always of looking around and then of looking forward for advent sunday next week is the gate to a new christian year when those qualities which christ the king in terms of heaven's terminology christ the king leads us into a world of sacrifice and service where there is much joy and much thanksgiving and also the sharing of much pain and all those things in our finite human condition is something that jesus shares and in which he embraces his own disciples in that loving embrace which understands their weaknesses and forgives them when they fall all those things will be repeated over and over again in human situations in the christian year to come that's for next week for the moment we pause under the golden leaves and consider what true glory means and what true kingship means and then we rightly celebrate the feast of christ the king this is a date when in 1695 henry purcell one of the greatest of english composers died he died on the eve of sin cecilia's day tomorrow is the feast of sin cecilia the patron saint of music and he had so often written odes to sin cecilia and at the same time written much much royal music he'd been born in 1659 just the year before the restoration of king charles ii and his father sang in the choir of the chapel royal at the coronation of charles ii earthly kingship and then at the same time parcell percell grew up in the um context of westminster abbey and its coral foundation and the chapel royal and its coral foundation he belonged in his time to both and held at one point positions at both as the organist of westminster abbey and of the chapel royal and was a composer of immense output and immense quality and was born and died in london and we think of him today and all that music which he gave for our worship and also for the stage for he was someone who loved to compose for dramatic activities but he was also someone who loved to compose for particular people there was a lay clerk who sang later on in uh london in the choir of the chapel royal called john gosling who at the time personal first knew him was singing here in canterbury but he had an enormous range of a bass voice he was a basso profundo of two full octaves of the d above the bass clef and right down to the d below the bass clef two full octaves and pursel wrote a wonderful anthem for him they that go down to the sea in ships it begins psalm 107 and as he began it and that lovely ansem uh begins on the high d with the they that go down and goes all the way down to the sea in ships to the low d and parcel was celebrating the musical quality of that one person john gosling and since then of course it's been a very popular answer and his anthems happen in episodes so that you get almost as his his dramas do but in a much shorter way different episodes shown and different qualities of what's being sung think of his and some very early anthem in 1678 my beloved spake and said unto me rise up and it's the coming of spring when the voice of the tattletap is heard in the land and the fig tree puts forth tender leaves and the music he gives is illustrative just as he did in drama 1679 parcel took john blows place at westminster abbey and his his appetite for composing music of that kind and for royal occasions became a in a great way it burgeoned but at the same time it was at that kind of time between 1680 and 88 that he wrote his famous opera dido and aeneas and of course in that there is that wonderful lament by naido when i am laid in earth one of the pieces of the band play on remembrance sunday at the cenotaph in whitehall probably he was the first one to create a genuine english opera sung right through with great drama with storms and laments and love music and tragedy and all of that but meanwhile on he went and he found even after the what was called the glorious revolution in 1688 when king james ii for whose coronation he had composed music uh and my heart is indicting his his anthem but at the same time when william and mary came to the throne in 1688 queen mary was one of his greatest patronesses and some of the odes for queen mary's birthday uh were some of his finest music probably the best of them all the og kami sons of art with that that beautiful duet of sound the trumpet he wrote things like the fairy queen king arthur celebrating historic passages in this land and again in king arthur that lovely song fairest isle and the tdman jubilati is still sung here and also the funeral music for queen mary for she herself uh died and her funeral took place in march 1695 and one of the funeral sentences thou knowest lord the secrets of our hearts is often sung not just by cathedral and choral foundations at that level but also by paris church choirs often at funerals no one was to know at that time that just a few months later it would be sung at purcell's own funeral and at his funeral he was honored by the foundation at westminster abbey and the plate his his plaque is stone in westminster abbey says here lies henry purcell esquire who left this life and is gone to that blessed place where only his harmony can be exceeded only in heaven could harmonies like his be exceeded and probably the anthem that is sung most of all by paris church choirs and cathedral choirs is known as the bell anthem rejoice in the lord alway and again i say rejoice how many of his words and dramatic scenes are in our minds and hearts as we give thanks for him on this day when we celebrate christ the king and probably his most famous hymn tune is called westminster abbey it was cut from one of his anthems and given those those words blessed city heavenly salem then again very different this uh on the 21st of november in 1932 the novelist beryl bainbridge was born and she achieved great fame as a novelist of course because she she imagined herself in different situations of ordinary life with ordinary people and in that imagination she allows us to build up pictures but she struck a vein of gold in her work when she began to write historical situations with shall we say a fictitious character sometimes not fictitious but a lot of imagination around them placed in that situation and i think particularly of a novel called every man for himself set on the titanic with a character 22 year old morgan who is there on the titanic and it goes through the four days that he spent on the titanic and in her imagination there are many historic characters there but she allows you to enter into that and and actually use that gift of imagination and reflection which you we use constantly not only in memory but also in our spirituality too in imagination in imaginings which are of our mind and our heart but which can further us forward in good ways and also sometimes in wrong ways uh master georgie which takes us to the crimean war or according to queenie it's queen israel and this is a favorite of all because it's the last two decades of the life of dr johnson samuel johnson and in that many of the characters of his life are there and in reading it once again you're allowed to enter into that world of imagination and it's a a really good way of helping us understand a historic situation although there are fictitious things in it and she's faithful to it and that became very popular as i say she struck a vein of gold in all of that in her book so we give thanks for her ability to write and also her ability to imagine and finally i wanted to mention and here's another 21st of november in 1886 sir harold nicholson was born and he died in may 1968 but harold nicholson is listed and what a list this is in in terms of so what was he and the list is politician member of parliament diplomat in his early life historian biographer diarist novelist lecturer broadcaster journalist and gardener because of course he was the husband of vita sackville west and they made their home at sissinghurst all those things i first got to know the name harold nicholson in reading his biography of king george v and again he has a wonderful way of writing and imagining and using the historic facts to let you enter into the situation but better still and this i found later his history of the congress of vienna and that is full of amusement he uses all his diplomatic skills as a young diplomat working in the foreign office as one of the junior secretaries it had been his task on august the 4th 1914 to walk across from the foreign office to deliver the papers of war and declaration to prince lychnovsky the german ambassador they're living across st james's park and to witness the uh tragedy in prince lignovsky's face that all efforts that diplomatic solutions to that awful conflict which had just begun had ended and nicholson is so good at describing such things but when his diaries and letters and memories came out and that happened um right at the end of his life then again one entered into that world where we ourselves because we're good at imagining ourselves in situations if it's described rightly nicholson had a way of doing that and at the same time he created for us with vita sackville west that lovely garden at sittinghurst which uh we feel is at the moment in the national trust hands not giving the flavour of the family but at the same time is a very famous garden and um we've said before i think up the road great dixter there is still the flavor of the family with christopher lloyd's memory there or at gordington with the the flavour of alan windham green there and at that point um one ought not to be too cruel on sissinghurst but certainly it would have been lovely to see it at the time when vita and harold themselves had that garden well the power of imagination and the danger of imagination and jesus correcting his disciples on what it means to be one who is the leader whose views and whose wisdom and whose authority is respected but who herself or himself must serve the welfare of those over whom they have influence many thanksgivings then for this last sunday of the christian year this stir up sunday as we say our prayers this morning 21st of november we're praying for the church of bangladesh in the anglican communion and also praying in this diocese for the romney and tenterdon deanery and its clergy and people the area deanery of romney and tentative and chris hodgkins the area dean and the assistant graham holstall so let's also pray for archbishop justin and rose bishop of dover and emma bishop at lambus as we say this morning the collect for christ the king the last sunday of the christian year eternal father whose son jesus christ ascended to the throne of heaven that he might rule over all things as lord and king keep the church in the unity of the spirit and in the bond of peace and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen and we say together the prayer our savior taught us to say when we pray our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen moment now of quiet reflection and 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