good morning and welcome to the deanery at canterbury cathedral on this monday the 27th of december it's the feast of st john the evangelist it's also boxing day because boxing day couldn't be yesterday because it was a sunday so christmas sundays intervened this year between christmas day and boxing day when there are many sporting activities going on all kinds of things going on in the nation as people go out and get some fresh air and we have come into this little room which fletcher himself absolutely transformed it was the old medieval dairy at the bottom of the south tower here in the deanery and looked nothing whatsoever like this but he transformed it into his uh study and put in the the paneling and the bookshelves and the fireplace and it is a very attractive room to come into now you've been in here before and we've done things in here and you know probably that it's lily's favorite room and she's here with us but we'll see her in a moment i wanted first simply to make sure that we were praying for those in brazil after very very heavy rain storms have caused two dams to burst and the people dealing with that must be having the most awful time in trying to rescue people in their homes and in that that severe flooding so we think of the people of brazil this morning bring your own intentions and prayers from across the world on this monday morning as we pray together and as i said it's the feast of st john the evangelist so today our color has turned from the red of the since stephen's martyrdom yesterday to the white of st john the evangelist the beloved disciple each day after christmas gets a a special saint it seems but today very much st john the evangelist and we shall be thinking of that as we go on with our reflections later on you'll hear in the background the noise because there's an outside window which goes into a a large covered aviary beyond and you'll hear the noises of canaries and budgets and and all kinds of birds in there as we worship oh lord open our lips and our mouths shall proclaim your praise you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands blessed are you sovereign god creator of heaven and earth to you be praise and glory forever as your living word eternal in heaven assume the frailty of our mortal flesh may the light of your love be born in us to fill our hearts with joy as we sing 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 amen our psalm on this 27th morning of the month is psalm 121 i lift up my eyes to the hills from where is my help to come my help comes from the lord the maker of heaven and earth he will not suffer your foot to stumble he who watches over you will not sleep behold he who keeps watch over israel shall neither slumber nor sleep the lord himself watches over you the lord is your shade at your right hand so that the sun shall not strike you by day neither the moon by night the lord shall keep you from all evil it is he who shall keep your soul the lord shall keep watch over your going out and your coming in from this time forth forevermore very difficult to decide which lesson to read about st john the beloved disciple there are so many dimensions that we'll go into in a while but i in the end settled on the first chapter of his first letter and we shall read that now the first letter of john just the whole of the first chapter because it gives the essence of that divine dimension which the prologue to the fourth gospel also gives and as we read it we realize that the perception of that which is eternal is shot right through the imagery that john is using that which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life the life was made manifest and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and was made manifest to us that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son jesus christ and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete this is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that god is light and in him is no darkness at all if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of jesus his son cleanses us from all sin if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness if we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us the first chapter of the letter of john a general letter sent to christians in the early church and the kind of imagery which is used in the fourth gospel is very much to the fore just there but we notice that in the fourth gospel he is the witness to jesus saying i am i am i am all the time in his ministry and one of those statements i am the light of the world and the bright beams as the special prayer for this day will say when we say that the colic forcing john the evangelist day the bright beams of the message that the beloved disciple wants to give us are given an illustration by the sense of heaven's light like a glorious sun dawning on us and casting away the darkness so that when we begin to think of this we see jesus saying i am the light of the world i am the way the truth and the life but in this epistle we have instead god is light god is love present tense still but the gift is from the creator and also that gift has been witnessed in human terms by the writer writing so much longer afterwards so we could have today read so many little stories on the way through or references to john we could have read the initial call on the lakeside when john with his normally thought to elder brother james because james is always mentioned first in james and john but james justice stephen was the first christian martyr james was the first of the twelve to be martyred in by king herod very early on in the acts of the apostles but we remember the lakeside call there when they were working the pair of brothers with their father zebedee in the boat with the hired hands coming from what was clearly quite a prosperous fishing fishing company there on the side of the lakeside with simon and andrew and those four will be called and follow jesus and john's role grows he becomes one of the inner core say that when jesus wants to take some of the disciples with him to go further into the truth of what his anointed messiahship means it's usually peter and james and john those three and we see that again and again on the mountain of transfiguration or in the uh olive garden at gethsemane but at the same time sometimes james and john are mentioned by themselves and jesus nicknames them if you remember the sons of thunder which doesn't seem to fit at all with the reflective nature of the writer of the epistle and also the deep thinking of the prelude to the fourth gospel it's as though in later life john calms down from being a son of thunder when he and his brother get it wrong several times lord he says we've found someone who was casting out demons in your name who didn't come along with us and we stopped him jesus said don't stop them anyone who is not against us is for us and you remember also how they the brothers asked whether they could sit on each side of him in his glory and jesus then uses the image of a little child and not only says here is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven but also says in matthew's gospel unless you turn round and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven well that is a dimension of trusting childhood which in spiritual terms we have to embrace as bright beams one by one throughout life in different ways are given to us of that spiritual dimension we could have mentioned all of that we could have read a lesson of the beloved disciples sitting beside his lord at the last supper and we could also have mentioned the story on the lakeside when james and and john the sons of zebedee are there with simon and they go fishing after the resurrection not quite knowing what to do next and so they go back to what they thought they would be good at still and take a boat out fishing and fish without any success all night and you remember the stranger on the shore calling to them have you any fish and cast your net onto the right side of the boat and then there were so many fish that the net almost broke and they come together and simon leaps into the sea saying it is the lord and the beloved disciple comes on in the boat as though his relationship with jesus has already transformed itself and then afterwards that statement by jesus when jesus when peter says looking around at john what's going to happen to him and jesus says almost never you mind if it's my will that she remain until i come what is that to you follow me each person's vocation quite different but john's vocation then clearly goes on because we read of him not only in the the acts of the apostles but also in paul's letter to the galatians where paul goes up to see the three pillars of the church the leaders of the church in jerusalem after his his damascus road experience and who are they well kephas peter and then james not the brother of john but the brother of jesus himself who became the leader of the christian community in jerusalem and then john a pillar of the church at that time the three of them the leaders but john's vocation in the traditions of the church was different and he is uh thought to have gone possibly taking the mother of jesus with him because she was given into his care at the cross to ephesus and there in ephesus in very old age polycarp not polycarp in old age but john in old age polycarp heard him preaching and gave a witness to that which was common currency in the early church and john's salmon in old age little children love one another and there are two aspects of that first the unless you turn around and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven and then the second one love one another god is love says this epistle and those who live in love live in god the way in which john's thinking is given to us is right through the new testament and you need to search for it but especially in this letter of his before that in the gospels themselves and we give thanks for this shall we call it a almost a christmas jigsaw as we place the colored pieces together sort of time of the year when people like playing family games or doing jigsaws very often gifts come as jigsaws at christmas time but here we've come today by this christmas tree which is covered in white decorations for that very reason for the color for john the evangelist day is white a purity of spiritual gifts being given and covered here with the white doves symbolizing peace peace between heaven and earth which the angels sing of in their message to the shepherds but also peace between us and god those words which we read from the first chapter of john's letter are familiar to us the last words if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us um and then but if we confess our sins we have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins that's the second chapter of that epistle making peace through confessing our sins realizing our particular uh dependence as children on the creator especially in the gifts given of eternity to us so as we piece that heavenly jigsaw together i said this was lily's favorite room and here she is being very tranquil this morning [Music] how do you do [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] nations [Music] uh [Music] is [Music] so [Music] is [Music] r [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] as we piece that together i want to think of two dates there are dates of a beginning which really nobody much noticed which then flowered and into into something so much bigger in the minds and hearts of those who actually set off on this journey of one kind or another on this day the first one is december the 27th 1831 all those years ago when a small sloop of the royal navy which was shall we say equipped not only to be a ship of the royal navy to defend itself but also had all kinds of equipment on board to look at the charting of oceans and also to collect specimens from across the world and on that little ship which just sailed quietly out of the harbour at plymouth on this day in 1831 were two young men with very different roles one was robert fitzroy the captain of the ship hms beagle and the other charles darwin who had been recruited and fitzroy hadn't known him before because the captain knew and fitzroy was 26 years old only but he came from a very distinguished and aristocratic family and yet the family had had many depressions in them uh vikrant castle ray was a near relative as the foreign secretary who himself had committed suicide in a serious depression brought on by complete overwork and exhaustion and fitzroy also knew that for a captain it was going to be a long voyage and there would be a loneliness and so he asked friends and here's the description he gave if they could find a self-financing gentleman naturalist to give me company on the voyage and in the end consulting people in cambridge like who might be suitable then they came up with the idea of a young man who was at the time only 22 named charles darwin who had been set for the rural ministry of a country parish priest but had become very interested in geology and and natural specimens and natural life and fitzroy and he met and fitzroy thought he could be a good companion on that way that they could talk together and eat together and sometimes with all the officers present and the two lieutenants there lieutenant sullivan and lieutenant wickham other way around wickham was the senior uh and the the the crew of uh the hms beagle and off they said fitzroy is thinking it would be a two-year journey in fact it turned into a journey which was almost five years and much of it darwin spent on land collecting specimens and fitzroy in the ship mapped the area of of uh south america and around through the straits into the pacific and getting to the galapagos islands and then eventually the ship turned towards new zealand and uh on on until finally around the hall of africa mauritius and home arriving back home in october of uh the year 1836 they touched falmouth harbor and they'd had many many conversations sometimes you can imagine in the tiny size of the cabin and if you go to the house where darwin and his wife and family lived here in kent downhouse it's called there is in the upstairs rooms uh a a cabin set out of the exact size where darwin would work and that kind of constraint together in those dangerous days at sea then that becomes immensely important because the the really very strong arguments that they had and also fitzroy even with a gentleman companion there had disappointments which would make him really go into a deep depression and his officers and men would then need with darwin to try to to save him but the anger and rages that would come and so on and so forth but you can imagine it a small ship for almost five years and darwin on onshore was allowed by fitzroy to take there had been a cabin boy called simes covington who was also a a fiddler on the violin and he'd been brought along to be the cabin steward of the cabin boy in in in looking after some of their needs but he took an interest when darwin would bring specimens back onto the ship simes would he was simon covington ready but simes would would look at the specimens and begin to learn and learn and darwin in the end wrote to his father and said i'm quite keen because when i go onshore i need help physical help to get the specimens on board and also to take notes while i'm doing things and i'm quite keen to employ simes as a a personal servant i can't load that onto the captain because that's extra expense from the admiralty and so darwin's father in shrewsbury who was a doctor there in shrewsbury sent back eventually and said yes that's fine but in fact fitzroy also uh joined in and said well no when simon's living on board there's no charge for any of that so he met half the the amount it's going to be 60 pounds a year to have simes as starman's personal servant and keep him in and should we say bed and board but in fact fitzroy met half that and we remember how then simes covington went back with darwin and when darwin settled down he stayed with him as long as 1839 so they arrived back in 1836 three years and then uh darwin was never going to go again on a voyage of that sort he settled down to look at his specimens in house and simes wanted to travel and so he left darwin emigrated to australia and his wife and family and he lived there in sydney and uh but when he came back he was still only 20 when they returned from the beagle voyage so all of life was ahead of simes and he too had journals which she had written for darwin and fitzroy and covington all wrote copious notes of journals and for that we give great thanks because of course we read about how it was for the life of them all in that and how that voyage for darwin became a pod of knowledge and for fitzroy also who went on to to have a very uh distinguished life but in the end again his depression caught up with him uh but he was one of the earliest weather forecasters as well a meteorologist in in that way uh i wanted to say that beginning on this day in that little ship nobody noticed suddenly flowered into something amazing in terms of uh discovery of the creator's gifts throughout and fitzroy would keep up the daily services with the prayer book and the bible reading them and on sundays draw the crew together for a bible study as well as he the captain gave his knowledge about the the way in which prayer book and bible helped them in their journey at sea at the same time he and darwin would have arguments and and discussions and the crew called darwin philosopher because he was forever thinking this thinking that but in his letters to darwin afterwards fitzroy always shortened that to the word dear philos which of course is the same as philos in greek which simply means friend a close friend so the other day today which is very much a christmas sort of date is the same date december the 27th in 1904 when on this night the night of the 27th of december peter pan was first performed in the duke of york theater and it was the kind of tale on stage that was really unknown until that time and barry was very nervous about this tale of peter pan and wendy and the lost boys wendy's brothers michael and john and nana the dog who's the nurse mage back in mr mrs darling then captain hook and his pirates and the crocodile all of this how would it go down how would it go down and uh we came to the point with tinker bell and tinker bell was as you know on stage done with a spotlight going around and little bell ringing wherever she was and then in the end uh tinker bell um becomes sad because she thinks she's losing peter and she is she is then uh um going to die and and in the uh in the um pantomime as it was not really a penchamer christmas play the the audience and this the first night this happened the audience asked don't let him die if you believe in fairies clap your hands and barry was just in absolute nervousness about this in his never neverland uh um whimsy so to speak but with so many human truths threaded through them and after the thing clap your hands there was a tremendous silence and there's a sort of white tied very smart london society at the duke of york theater looking at this grandparents with their children and then suddenly somebody began to applaud and the whole place burst into a huge ovation and tinker bell was saved as was peter pan and we know what happened with it there were so many things that went went on after that in terms of the way it went to broadway and was a huge success over there became a christmas play in so many ways walt disney then made it into a film and uh other films like never neverland and and all of those things have been made and hook of course so so we've we've we've got so many things that have come from that and uh tinker bell is a little bit like lily actually she gets frightfully jealous if uh if leo's taking all the show but this morning we made absolutely sure that in this her favorite room by the fire here no one is going to disturb her because she is someone who needs to be given great care and attention and above all else admiration so we give thanks for beginnings and christmas entertainments and the way in which we find joy through family games together and the jigsaw pieces of st john the evangelist which allow us to place physical facts what we saw with our eyes and touch with our hands we proclaim to you the humanity of jesus thinking and the way in which uh john stretches our minds with his theology both in the gospel and in the epistle and lastly spiritual gifts unless you turn around and become like children you will never even enter the kingdom of heaven there's something which must have the capacity to be a dependent child so that the bright beams of the evangelist teaching can enter not just our mind and our physicality to give us encouragement but our very souls and that's a gift that dies not with our death but carries us beyond into the eternal realms that john was so much wanting to share with us so thanks be to god this day for the uh sin john apostle and evangelist on his day we'll read first of all the special prayer for his day which talks about that light which he was insistent upon which banishes the darkness merciful lord cast your bright beams of light upon your church that being enlightened by the teaching of your blessed apostle and evangelists in john we may so walk in the light of your truth that we may at last attain to the light of everlasting life through jesus christ your incarnate son our lord amen so we come to the christmas collect and before that we will pray for the diocese of indianapolis in the anglican communion today in the episcopal church of the united states and we pray in this diocese for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover and for bishop emma at lambeth and today for the parish of uh saint dunstan st mildred and saint peter here in the city of canterbury uh all of them lovely churches and very historic ones as well and we pray for joe richards in her uh her ministry as the incumbent there the parish priest with assistant chiara jennifer walpole and pray for the congregation there at that place uh so let's say our prayer for today this is the christmas college now almighty god you have given us your only begotten son to take our nature upon him and as it is time to be born of a pure virgin grant that we who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace may daily be renewed by your holy spirit through jesus christ our lord amen so we say each in our own language 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 amen moment of silence now for your own reflections so [Music] so [Music] [Music] is uh [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] yes [Music] so [Music] say [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] a christ who by his coming at christmas time gathered into one things of earth and things of heaven fill you and those with whom you will spend this day and the days of christmas with the spirit of peace and good will 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 amen those of you who know the city of canterbury will have recognized the three churches we prayed for today each one has great historic significance if we walk from here down the high street itself the first one that we come to is uh saint peter's on the right and that's a very ancient and lovely church right next to the male theater where at the moment it's pantomime time with all kinds of stories of the the pantomimes and everyone going there become children in the audience at that point and then one could go either straight on to sin dunstan's church on the left and there they have the historic significance of the head of thomas moore being buried there because thomas moore's daughter margaret ropa married into the ropa family and uh that was their land across there and she rescued her father's head after his exit his uh execution it had been stuck on a pole as a a kind of warning to folk and she brought it back and it's reverently buried in the church there as well and you can still visit the roper gatehouse but also if you turned left earlier on in the high street and gone down through you could have come to st mildred's church which is the oldest parish church within the city walls great deal of ecclesiastical history and great architectural beauty and interest in that part of canterbury that so we pray for all those folk in those parishes so the three of us lily and fletcher behind the camera and myself would like to wish you a happy boxing day a busy but relaxed day we hope