good morning and a warm welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral as we come out into the sunshine this morning as it comes up to say our morning prayers wherever you are in the world please feel welcome as we say our prayers together and bring your own concerns to this time of prayer and reflection as always we look back on this november the 17th it's tuesday november the 17th and in former years one finds always a mixed bag of all kinds of things perhaps we might remind ourselves that in 2019 the first covid case kovid19 case was traced on this day to a 55-year-old man who visited the market in wuhan how long ago that seems now and what consequences have come from all of that as we look back to last year on november the 17th the same time one can go back much farther and realize that in 1918 on this day deaths in the united states from the influenza pandemic which was sweeping the world exceeded casualties in the great war an extraordinary statistic and then maybe another thing to remember in 1925 the actor rock hudson was born great hollywood actor and sadly the first celebrity to die of an ace related condition and one remembers once again the devastation of a disease which for which there was no solution no cure which for us at a time when we expect medicine to do everything is a shock and we're living with that shock worldwide with this present pandemic going to mention that in 1929 herman holleris died he was an american statistician who invented a machine to record statistics and punch cards and it became the father and mother of all machines which could uh correspond with with uh something punched or or written to show what the statistics were now i mentioned him herman holleris because his great grandson randy holleris is the dean of the national cathedral in washington so we remember today the life of washington national cathedral we send our greetings and prayers to dean randy and to melissa and their family and also their wonderful black labrador dog lady and that's a cheerful memory across the atlantic which at present because of all the restrictions is uncrossable well other things i should have mentioned yesterday um the death of des o'connor who actually um he died aged 88 but he cheered us up in so many different ways as a compare and a comedian and a television personality and that kind of creativity is very precious there are good things which happened today in 1869 the suez canal was opened making the journey by ship so much faster and safer than every ship having to go all the way around the cape of good hope and on and so that we give thanks for the way in which our communications have improved but we again remember the way in which something like a pandemic can close them down to keep us all safe it's international students day so let's pray for all those who are at universities and colleges throughout the world and pray for their safety and also for all the steps being taken so that they might be able here in this country to go home for christmas all those things we remember as we say our prayers together oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the true the only light banish all darkness from our hearts and minds blessed are you sovereign god creator of all to you be glory and praise forever you founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands in the fullness of time you made us in your image and in these last days you have spoken to us in your son jesus christ the word made flesh as we rejoice in the gift of your presence among us let the light of your love always shine in our hearts your spirit ever renew our lives and your praises ever be on our lips 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 does 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 the psalm on this 17th morning of the month is the beautiful psalm 87 it's very short but it's wonderful her foundations are on the holy mountains the lord loves the gates of zion more than all the dwellings of jacob glorious things are spoken of you zion city of our god i record egypt and babylon as those who know me behold philistia tyre and ethiopia in zion were they born and of zion it shall be said each one was born in her and the most high himself has established her the lord will record as he writes up the peoples this one also was born there and as they dance they shall sing all my fresh springs are in you wonderful vision of the idealized or heavenly city of jerusalem the heavenly symbol of human community whatever that city be and the loveliest line of all all my fresh springs are in you the fountain of all life so we're going to read this morning uh the beginning of chapter 11 of the revelation to john now this is an allegory and the only way that we can begin to see where all these pictures have come from and i can't do this this morning there wouldn't be time that you could do it at home is to read the book of the prophet zechariah strange thing to say but you will find so many of these images which john is using in code form because he dare not write down any criticism of the roman imperial government he's already in exile and in fear of his life and he's writing about the terror that christians are feeling at a time of persecution and great suffering but zechariah is the fountain of so many of these images there are other parts of the old testament and even the new testament the gospels themselves which we shall look at and see that those images come from there too but just have a look at zechariah and you'll begin to see how the allegories work here though is 1 to 14 of chapter 11 of john's book of pictures the revelation to john then i was given a measuring rod like a staff and i was told rise and measure the temple of god and the altar and those who worship there but do not measure the court outside the temple leave that out for it is given over to the nations and they will trample the holy city for 42 months and i will grant authority to my two witnesses and they will prophesy for 1260 days closed in sackcloth these are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the lord of the earth and if anyone would harm them fire pours from their mouths and consumes their foes if anyone would harm them this is how that one is doomed to be killed they have the power to shut the sky that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they desire and when they have finished their testimony the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war in them and conquer them and kill them and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called sodom and egypt where their lord was crucified for three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presence because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth but after the three and a half days a breath of life from god entered them and they stood up on their feet and great fear fell on those who saw them then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them come up here and they went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies watched them and at that hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the god of heaven the second woe has passed behold the third woe is soon to come well these pictures go before us in a way that almost dazzles our eyes though in our generation we're quite used to pictures of that thought were used to films animated or real but using enormous effects to show us things which are allegories we're used to great battles between good and evil but let's look at this one and see what is happening the two witnesses well if you go to zechariah you'll find that in his vision the two witnesses are in fact signs of the anointed royal line of david in the potential king zerababel of the human royal line of the house of david and also of the priesthood in joshua who was given clean clothes to wear taking away the stain of the past they stand there before their god in the prophet zechariah that was an historic hope when the exile came back from babylon and the temple was being rebuilt that the royal line of david and the priesthood would be re-established through these two physical persons but here it's different these two still represent an anointed priesthood and we've seen how in the first chapter in verse six of the first chapter of john's book of pictures he talks about all the people of god being a royal house of priests to god these two are a symbolic representation of all and they represent that anointed priesthood which christ wants his church to become a self-giving self-sacrificing priesthood representing the lamb that was slain the one who opened wide his arms on calvary and rose victorious and then was raised to the glory of the heavenly dimension olive trees lamps they're described as both and then also there are echoes of the scene of transfiguration where on each side of our lords stood moses and elijah and moses had the rod of power through aaron his brother to turn waters into blood in great plagues here's a resonance here and elijah had power to shut up the sky so that it didn't rain and in both luke chapter four and the epistle of james chapter five the duration of elijah's drought was given as three and a half years if you want numbers to play with and it's it's a i think a wild goose chase because all these things are symbolic and john's pictures change and flicker like the old black and white films did but they're full of color and here he's talking about the prophetic power and also the real power of god given to his ministers in a royal priesthood yet some are called to a martyr's death and then of course the monster appears or whenever a beast appears and it's not stopped in political cartoonist today right through from the 18th 19th century and right to the 20 20th and 21st century quite often people are portrayed allegorically sometimes as creatures but certainly in caricatures and we know what they're representing but john is doing it for a very good reason he is very very frightened of the imperial power but at the same time sees it and this at this time is the imperial power of rome though he always calls that babylon going back through but when he's likening the cities of evil where the divine power was seized by a proud human being wielding the power of the sword he can call it egypt of the pharaoh or sodom or babylon and you can go through history as t.s eliot did with the destruction of cities and powers rising and falling but for john it was the imperial power of rome where the emperor took god-like status which was the ultimate blasphemy and christians lost their lives because they refused to worship at that altar and give glory to anyone except the god of earth at the beginning of the chapter and the god of heaven at the end of the section we just read how we could go on in this way you'll see how fascinating it is and we can get lost in detail but the truth is absolutely there that those who have given their lives and very often their bodies have laying in the streets like the apostle james who was killed by the sword the brother of john in the in the city of jerusalem by king headed in the acts of the apostles the first of the twelve to be cut down and no doubt left lying in the street where he was killed all of that but that has been replicated through history as well i could have mentioned yesterday that it was a day when the abbot of glastonbury was hanged and then drawn and quartered on glastonbury tour with two of his senior monks on each side suffering the same fate simply because he would not bow to the royal power as exercised by thomas cromwell at that time and whiting was a massively respected figure at the in the the earlier years of the reign of king henry viii as was thomas moore but both because they would not give way to the claims of humanity over what they perceived to be the will of god died appalling deaths abbot whiting's head was placed on the gate of his own monastery which afterwards was ravaged and destroyed and his limbs were taken to pieces and put around the towns of somerset which had been the estates of the abbey of glastonbury and here you have the same their dead bodies will lie in the streets he could be talking about peter and paul killed in the city of rome itself but in fact he's not being detailed he's saying what it costs to stand for the kingdom of god on this day november the 17th in 1558 mary tudor queen mary the first who has earned the nickname bloody mary died she died young and died disappointed and on exactly the same day her archbishop of canterbury reginald pole died and he is buried here in canterbury cathedral he was the last archbishop of canterbury to wear the pallium which was given by the pope to him but he died on the day that his queen died royal authority and ecclesiastical authority the secular and the spiritual [Music] they had during those years seen over the death of so many who were burned to death at the stake but if we think that that is the only kind of torture that was going on you have to look back a bit further and see how reginald poles family because he himself had escaped during the later years of henry viii his whole family including his mother were put to death and she and english aristocrat again who was deeply respected but persecution is no respecter of persons so that in the end of the reign of henry viii and throughout the reign of edward vi and throughout the reign of queen mary and into the reign of queen elizabeth the first persecutions happened and one only has to go and stay as we do often if we're in rome as guests of the venerability to see on the walls pictures of those who coming here were hunted down and killed in atrocious ways and their human bodies exhibited as signs of fear all of that is in the book of revelation and it shows the way in which things develop when james and john come to jesus and say shall we call down fire to swallow these people up jesus will have none of it elijah called down fire we'll have none of it and we remember that story which we saw in saint luke instead it's his own life he offers exhibited hanging on a cross which is the symbol for us all and carries us through this book of revelation which we as i keep saying must see as a whole until we get to the holy city itself at the end of the book sorry lots of details this morning but we give thanks for them and the imagery that is given to artists and musicians of the worship of the courts of heaven and the courage of those on earth as well and the patience of so many who say how long o lord how long so let's say our prayers on this particular day as i'm sitting in front of a medler tree it's a tree where the fruits must stay until they begin to grow soft and rot it's an english word we call bletching the meddlers it's the only time that word is used when they become soft and they're beginning to fall now we can pick them up and we can at that time make them into a fine amber colored jelly which can be used in this country for um accompaniment with cold meats and things of that sort so if you're wondering at the tree which still has some gold leaves on it and these funny fruits they are medlars so here we go with the prayers for this particular day the 17th of november which are for the diocese of saldana bay in southern africa and bishop raphael hess and his people there and the diocese of duke in south sudan and daniel dengabot the bishop and all his people and here we're praying for the parish church of all saints maidstone with sin philip with since stephen toddle within the area deanery of maidstone and we pray for the community of those churches this morning bring your own prayers for whatever is on your heart and in your minds on this particular day as we say the prayer for this day heavenly father whose blessed son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil and to make us the children of god and as of eternal life grant that we having this hope may purify ourselves even as he is pure that when he shall appear in power and great glory we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom where he is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen so we say uh the prayer that our savior taught us together in our different languages stretching across our whole world 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 make our own prayers on this day perhaps let's remember that lovely last verse of psalm 87 and as they dance they shall sing all my fresh springs are in you the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and upon those whom you would pray for today and always are men i'm very clever at knowing when i finish don't you okay we can go down now