good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this friday the 28th of january as we come to say our morning prayers it is a lovely winter morning with a blue sky and sun having risen now and the trees of the garden quite still as there's no wind and we've come out here so that behind me is the large in some parts of the world called a king palm because this morning all of our um thoughts when we come to the reflection are anniversaries about uh leadership and kingship and styles of leadership but it's also of course when we come to the reading the uh kingship of saul whom samuel is now establishing as the king of all the tribes of israel in our lessons so let's begin our prayers bring your own concerns from across the world as we meet here in the garden on this really lovely morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your light springs up for the righteous and all the peoples have seen your glory blessed are you sovereign god our light and our salvation to you be glory and praise forever you gave your christ as a light to the nations and through the anointing of the spirit you established us as a royal priesthood as you call us into your marvelous light may our lives bear witness to your truth and our lips never cease to proclaim your 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 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 our son appropriately enough on this particular day of the month the 28th the morning psalm 132 it's a psalm about david who becomes for the psalms and for the people of israel the ideal image of kingship there are many faults and flaws in the story of david that she himself just epitomizes that sense of what kingship meant and the balance between that which was for god and that which was for the kingdom and the unity of the kingdom so here's this psalm 132 where david is pondering what he thinks it's his duty to do but it turns out to be it's his son solomon's vocation which actually affects that psalm 132 lord remember for david all the hardships he endured how he swore an oath to the lord and vowed a vow to the mighty one of jacob i will not come within the shelter of my house nor climb up into my bed i will not allow my eyes to sleep nor let my eyelids slumber until i find a place for the lord a dwelling for the mighty one of jacob now we heard of the ark in ephrathah and found it in the fields of jail let us enter his dwelling place and fall low before his footstool arise o lord into your resting place you and the ark of your strengths let your priests be clothed with righteousness and your faithful ones sing with joy for your servant david's sake turn not away the face of your anointed the lord has sworn an oath to david a promise from which he will not shrink of the fruit of your body shall i set upon your throne if your children keep my covenant and my testimonies that i shall teach them their children also shall sit upon your throne forevermore for the lord has chosen zion for himself he has desired her for his habitation this shall be my resting place forever here while i dwell for i have longed for her i will abundantly bless her provision her poor will i satisfy with bread i will clothe her priests with salvation and her faithful ones shall rejoice and sing there will i make a horn to spring up for david i will keep a lantern burning for my anointed as for his enemies i will close them with shame but on him shall his crown be bright we're thinking in our reading from the scriptures of a time long before jerusalem belonged to the tribes of israel and long long before any temple was established for the ark of the covenant to be placed in but in this psalm it's remembering that david thought that this was his role in the holy city of zion as it became to build a temple for the house of the lord and then he was informed that this wasn't his vocation this was for his son solomon and that would be something which david handed on words like forever are used which is never really a quantity of human time that we can speak about with our own intentions forever things like forever and or ever belong to god and not to finish humanity enough for us to live out our days fulfilling the vocation which the lord has given us before we enter into that eternity and become part of that so let's read our lesson for today and we are reading from the first book of samuel and you'll remember that yesterday we got to the point where saul was chosen as king and samuel set him in that way but then when samuel tells the people the rights and duties of kingship and they've seen saul though from the the smallest of the tribes and the smallest of the clans within that tribe of benjamin when they've seen saul head and shoulders above everyone else most accept him but you remember that some and this is how we ended some worthless fellows said how can this man save us and they despised him and brought him no present but saul held his peace now astonishingly then saul goes back to his farm and we find him when he comes into our story today in chapter 11 coming back from plowing with a yoke of oxen what has happened is that nehesh the king of the ammonites has attacked one of the cities of the tribes of israel and it's called jabesh gilead and the word goes round so let's let's read chapter 11. i'm going to read the whole of chapter 11 the the 15 verses of chapter 11 of one samuel then nehash the ammonite went up and besieged jabesh gilead and all the men of jabesh said to nahash make a treaty with us and we will serve you but nahash the ammonite said to them on this condition i will make a treaty with you that i gouge out all your right eyes and thus bring disgrace on all israel the elders of jabesh said to him give us seven days respite that we may send messengers through all the territory of israel then if there is no one to save us we will give ourselves up to you when the messengers came to gibeah of saul they reported the matter in the ears of the people and all the people wept aloud now behold saul was coming from the field behind the oxen and saul said what is wrong with the people that they are weeping so they told him the news of the men of jabesh and the spirit of god rushed upon saul when he heard these words and his anger was greatly kindled he took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent the pieces throughout all the territory of israel by the hand of the messenger saying whoever does not come out after saul and samuel so shall it be done to his oxen then the dread of the lord fell upon the people and they came out as one man and when he mustered them at bizac the people of israel were three hundred thousand and the men of judah thirty thousand and they said to the messengers who had come thus shall you say to the men of jabesh gilead tomorrow by the time the sun is hot you shall have salvation when the messengers came and told the men of jabesh they were glad therefore the men of jabesh said tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you and you may do to us whatever seems good to you and the next day saul put the people in three companies and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning and struck down the ammonites until the heat of the day and those who survived were scattered so that no two of them were left together then the people said to samuel who is it that said shall saul reign over us bring the men that we may put them to death but saul said not a man shall be put to death this day for today the lord has worked salvation in israel then samuel said to the people come let us go to gilgal and there renew the kingdom so all the people went to gilgal and there they made saul king before the lord in gilgal there they sacrificed peace offerings before the lord and their saul and the men of israel rejoiced greatly it's a psalm about the assuming properly the kingship by saul so that he might unite the nation saul is still on his farm until then the tribes are separate places there's no particularly loyalty from one to another each looking after his own farm and here's saul coming in but the men of jabish gilead have sent this message that they have to surrender in order to make a treaty which will save the lives of all in the city and to do so uh they will have to have their right eyes gouged out as a sign of the disgrace of israel now this is something that unites the nation the people weep and paul says why are they weeping and the stories told him and at this point the spirit of the lord rushes on him to be the military leader that the people have wanted give us a king like the other nations that he may lead us in battle was the inference and saul with his great physical presence and his capacity as a military leader is filled with the spirit to go and rescue the men and the citizens all of them of jabesh gilead from nahash the king of the ammonites and his armies and they arrive uh just in the nick of time to save jabesh gilead and the people rejoice but at the same time there are those who says well obviously this is the king who are the people who say not put them to death and saul then sort of shows his metal and says no this is a day when the lord has shown his salvation to the whole nation that sense of the unity that the king was meant to bring and so no one should be put to death reminds me of the the thoughts of dean turner coming back here to the deanery at the end of the english civil war when there was much crying for vengeance and as he set the bells ringing again and uh in 1660 prepared to welcome the new king into england his statements around to people were no no revenge after this on we go and this is the council of saul for the moment that the vengeance is taken then the nation is being split into pieces rather like the oxen and so here is saul showing not only his mettle as a military leader which has gained him the respect but also his wisdom at this stage as a leader of the whole people to allow the nation to go on without any kind of acts of vengeance and samuel spotting that this is the moment for a sacrifice and peace offerings and the sense of that tension between the lord is king and saul is king to be resolved he says to saul gather the people at gilgal now the word gilgal means a circle of standing stones and it's thought there were probably several gilgals in in israel there was certainly one which was set up by joshua at the point of the river jordan where the tribes crossed so we're imagining them coming to something which is already a holy place of of historic significance and going to gilgal this circle of standing stones marking out a place of holiness in the history and worship of the nation in order to make peace offerings and samuel is of course the person who is going to make these offerings you see the division still between the prophet and the king saul the king and samuel the prophet and the prophet here who is the shall we say the religious leader of of that guarding the the principle that the lord is king and any king of israel takes power from the lord and the people must recognize that well it happens that on this particular day the 28th of january we have all kinds of anniversaries of both european and uh british kingships and first of all i'm wanting to deal with that image rather like david is an image of kingship holy kingship to the psalmist and to those who come after so that the royal line of david is is the the place where the christ will be born and and son of david is one of those titles which is given to jesus at the same time in europe there is this image of charles the great charlemagne who was the very first holy roman emperor and he died on this day the 28th of january in the year 8 14 long time back in archen or if you if you want it's more more normally in france or in england sometimes called ex-slash appel but in aachen there is a magnificent cathedral there which was charlemagne's cathedral already he had been king of the franks and king of the lombards for some years uh he'd been king of the frank since 768 but in the year 800 having taken his armies and by then he was uniting most of western europe and central europe he took his armies he was a christian king and it was the the absolute watchword that he lived by he took his armies to protect pope leo iii and pope leo iii took the opportunity to crown him in the old saint peter's basilica as the emperor of if you like the emperor of europe the holy roman emperor as that empire began to be called as it at that time united western and central europe in under one emperor but it was the and and uh certainly it didn't include uh britannia uh but it did actually include most of france uh and even at times in its history stretched down into barcelona quite soon after charlemagne's death his son louis the pious the next emperor took armies down to there so there was a should we call it a christian monarch and if one looks at the the facts about charlemagne it's quite clear that in his time it was called the carolingian empire after his name in his time there was a carolingian renaissance this isn't the renaissance which followed the middle ages this is the one at his time and i'm saying that he was crowned emperor of europe the holy roman emperor in the 800 by pope leo iii and also set himself as the protector of christian europe and of the pope in rome there's this balance once again an ideal balance in people's minds at that time in christendom of the one wielding earthly power and the one who represents the spiritual power of god but of course one has to keep saying that these are finite mortals and uh everything depends upon the quality of their leadership as well as the symbols that they represent yet charlemagne actually became factually not only a defender of christianity but a defender and promoter of education a defender and promoter of good government and also a protector wisely of local cultures so that the empire was full of different cultures and in the end that proved it's only uh um yesterday i think that we were thinking of the way in which the holy roman empire ended in 1806 by the military will of napoleon ripping everything up and saying it's time for a new beginning uh and his great statement was this place is neither holy nor roman nor an emperor nor an empire let's just get rid of it say that francis ii who was crowned in 1792 ceased to be the holy roman emperor in 1806 ending that long history from 800 when charlemagne was crowned on christmas day in saint peter's basilica the old one uh until the year 1806 when that ended as all human things tend to after they have served their purpose and people think no we want to do it this way now so let's think on and then i said there were some more dates and there are as we come out here and they are details of the royal family here in england and wales um i say that because the king whose birthday we remember on the 28th of january and he was born in 1457 is henry vii who was henry tudor and was born in 1457 in pembroke castle very much in in wales but he is the last english king to have obtained the throne on the field of battle for everything ended for richard iii at the battle of bosworth field on the 22nd of august 1485 when he lost the battle and henry vii representing in an oblique way the lancaster faction in the wars of the roses and of course richard was representing the yorkist faction the white rose so the red rose was represented by henry vii and the white rose by richard and richard not only soundly lost but was killed at that battle and henry from an unlikely beginning in this welsh family of tudor came forward and really by writer battle established the house of tudor thereby ending the wars of the roses which had gone on for 32 years backwards and forwards between the house of lancaster and the house of york probably that the yorkist king who was best remembered is edward iv and there is actually a a stained glass window in the cathedral and also a stained glass window in the house in the deanery of edward iv and his wife who's generally quite often called um the white queen and some of their family also shown one of them elizabeth of york one of their daughters henry vii marriage it clearly became afterwards an affectionate and loving match but at the time he did it because he wanted once for all to unite the house of lancaster and the house of york so that the kingdom would be united justice charlemagne was uniting the nations as saul was uniting the nations and now henry vii uniting the nations all of them beginning with a complete um battle one but at the same time now the skills needed in leadership are quite different because they now need to be shall we say diplomatic and human skills which charlemagne had many of and henry vii was very good with so that there was this sense of stability given and eventually a uniting of the nations and the sense of civil war went away and henry vii symbolized that by uniting in his emblem the white rose and the red rose into the tudor rose which is the symbol of the tudor monarchies right up to the end of the reign of elizabeth of the first and that rose has both white and red in its petals and in the emblems of the tudor monarchy unity through wise kingship there's another date attached to the tudor monarchy which concerns two kings for on this day now we're talking in 1547 henry viii the second son of henry vii died i say second son because prince arthur who'd been the heir died of a fever before his father henry vii had died and henry vii absolutely needing stability instantly prince henry the eighth became the king and henry viii is i don't have to say much about henry viii because he's one of the sort of famous kings and all kinds of legends accrue to him but we're talking about with henry vii coming the end of the middle ages and the the beginnings of the renaissance and the beginnings of modern kingship so that what henry viii craved was autonomy to make decisions he wanted no interference and hence he presided over a reformation of the church and renaissance uh uh um learning which and he was not uh he was very clever himself but that renaissance learning gave him the sense of what it meant to be king yet he could not ensure stability because he had no male heir and when the son was finally born after two daughters mary to catherine of aragon and elizabeth and berlin uh and then uh and edwards was born to jane seymour and the the mother died and then uh edward vi took over on the day of his father's death 28th of january today the beginning of a rain but this was not going to be a reign of great stability for the boy was aged 9 years old and was in the hands of lord's protectors the duke of somerset first and then the duke of northumberland and amongst the great of this land there was a jockeying for position and wanting desperately to have control of the crown and so in 1553 when edward vi died there was a total sense of instability which is what the kings themselves feared at all times i think henry became absolutely manic about leaving a stable kingdom but at the same time it went to his son who was governed by people who didn't ensure that stability and certainly the duke of northumberland in attempting to get his relative lady jane grey recognized as the next queen caused almost another civil war but in the end the privy council saw that stability was was what the people wanted and mary became queen so we're looking at today the sense of ideal kingship but it's something that humanity tries to reach for and it depends on human gifts and skills and that's the story of history the desire for peace and stability the desire for wise leadership but also at different times different gifts are called for and as we've seen from soul military gifts and leadership are called for before he is acclaimed king and henry vii won this kingdom in battle but then showed that he also had the skills to be a wise leader too in the same way as charlemagne the ideal king or if you like david in the psalm this morning so let's say our prayers on this particular day and we are praying in the anglican communion on the 28th of january for the diocese of camango in the anglican church of congo and we pray for the people there pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth and here in the diocese we're still continuing to pray for the the villages of the thanet area deanery which we begin to name tomorrow as we go day by day but we're praying for an initiative there which is called ignite to try and get the church's influence out into the villages and communities of spanish and we pray for the project leaders debbie and patrick elliston there uh this morning with the parishes of that deanery so let's say the prayer for this week and then we will say the our father in whatever language you like to use to unite us across the world almighty god whose son revealed in signs and miracles the wonder of your saving presence renew your people with your heavenly grace and in all our weakness sustain us by your mighty power through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language and in our own way we say the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever are men when yesterday we were playing the day before we were playing the the the hymns of different cathedrals we went to saint thomas church in mumbai and there was a song that we wanted very much to to have you hear from a group from a church the church of the holy redeemer a marathi song which was sung at the cathedral's turf centenary service of celebration but there really didn't seem to be time with all the music that we were giving you then and this morning we're going to use it because this is a day when we're thinking of the celebration of the people when saul is made king and it's a great song of praise but i'm going to read you the words of the song that is being sung in this lovely piece of music from st thomas cathedral church in mumbai these are the words my heart is the only place worthy to be the lord's temple it keeps me pure and keeps impure thoughts and actions away from me the holy spirit tramples down all acts which are against god's laws and stands firm to teach the right rules to be followed by all people when my whole being is filled with love of our lord jesus christ this heart has nothing to fear the choir of the church of the holy redeemer we would have the church of the holy redeemer lead us with a song by narendra modi my heart god's temple [Music] hmm [Music] ah [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Applause] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] i [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] m [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] my [Music] it's rather appropriate thinking of india that we've got tiger the tiger with us this morning who's been part of our worship throughout christ the son of god perfect in you the image of his glory and gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom 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 [Music] you