good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the 17th of december as we meet to say our morning prayers it's very early and still fairly dark and we've come out into the garden and put the lights on out here we have to be early this morning because uh we are early and out in the open air going to be singing carols with our staff as i bless the christmas trees at the cathedral west door the southwest door and the staff are looking forward to that afterwards we have hot chocolate together and everything else but it means we've come out early into the darkness to say our morning prayers with you first so wherever you are in the world please feel welcome and bring your own prayers and intentions we're still thinking of the areas that we spoke of yesterday being affected by storms and typhoons and and all climatic conditions but we're also thinking with enormous sadness of the death of the five children who fell from the bouncy castle in tasmania three are still in hospital in a critical condition and one has been released but how appalling that is for that little community of devonport and the little primary school there that the castle by a freak wind was blown up into the air over 30 feet high and the children fell from that to the ground so god blessed them all in that little community there this morning in australia and also we think of those in japan where 27 people have been killed in a fire there in a building that i think has now been extinguished but those of you in japan will know about that and we're thinking of you two in osaka so let's then say our prayers on this morning and i'll hold the book into the light and we can then begin oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise reveal among us the light of your presence that we may behold your power and glory blessed are you sovereign god of all do you be praise and glory forever in your tender compassion the dawn from on high is breaking upon us to dispel the lingering shadows of night as we look for your coming among us this day open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you praise blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen perhaps in our prayers also this morning we ought to remember all those in the uh particularly in these islands but probably across the world who are exercised in work of hospitality at this christmas time because so much has had to be cancelled and so many preparations for that has have simply been wasted as people are advised to stay away from social occasions where there is much mixing because of the omicron variant and our own cathedral lodge here all prepared for christmas has had to cancel many things so great sadness but also great financial loss for those in the hospitality industry and we think of them this morning as this year proceeds so we've come to a different place now in the garden and the dawn is beginning to break now but i'm sitting under the bear el ancestry the tree of heaven as we say our psalm for this morning which is psalm 87 for this 17th morning of the month her foundation is 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 [Music] it's a psalm about the holy city as well as the earthly place of pilgrimage that's probably the psalmist is is uh either thinking of in exile or going towards as a pilgrim we don't know the actual history of that psalm but it helps us with our reading from the letter to the hebrews this morning where the holy city becomes very much part of the thinking as it has been all the way through not only the earthly one but also the heavenly one the sign of all community and the quality and value of the kingdom of heaven so i'm going to read this morning from chapter 12 where we left off yesterday and i'm reading from verse 3 to the end of the chapter [Music] consider jesus who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary of being or faint-hearted in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood and have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children my child do not regard likely the discipline of the lord nor be weary when reproved by him for the lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every child whom he receives it is for discipline that you have to endure god is treating you as children for what child is there whom the father does not discipline if you are left without discipline in which all have participated then you are illegitimate children and not the children of the family besides this we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and respected them shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live for they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them that he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weakness and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the lord see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of god that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like esau who sold his birthright for a single meal for you know that afterwards when he desired to inherit the blessing he was rejected for he found no chance to repent though he sought it with tears for you have not come to what may be touched a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them for they could not endure the order that was given if even a beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned indeed so terrifying was the sight that moses said i tremble with fear but you have come to mount zion and to the city of the living god the heavenly jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festival gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to god the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of abel see that you do not refuse him who is speaking for if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven at that time his voice shook the earth but now he has promised yet once more i will shake not only the earth but also the heavens this phrase yet once more indicates the removal of things that are shaken that is things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and thus let us offer to god acceptable worship with reverence and all for our god is a consuming fire the end of chapter 12 but the writer is taking up over and over again the sacramental images the images of an earthly kind pointing to the things of heaven and that becomes a really important aspect of all of this remember that the the chapter began with the looking to jesus verses which we read yesterday here they are again the beginning of chapter 12. therefore since we are surrounded by so greater cloud of witnesses let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us looking to jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of god looking to jesus it's what we do morning by morning in word and in reflection in sacrament in the breaking of bread the offering of the cup shed for the forgiveness of sins all these things the writer to the hebrews is giving us in the form of almost pictures but rooting the writing in the words of the old covenant to show how the new covenant has taken that as a seed and grown and flowered magnificently into a vision of the eternal city mount zion in eternity given to us today in this particular chapter but the the absolute message of this particular chapter is a message of endurance and one endures even in painful times which this writer sees as times of training for the life which causes us to journey as strangers and pilgrims to go back to one of his other words in this particular life but also seeing glimpses constantly of that eternal city particularly when we look to jesus in his earthly life but through the gift of the holy spirit know that he is walking with us every step of the way the author and finisher the beginning and the ending as we saw yesterday of our faith but today the message is for constancy of endurance and the writer looks back to that scene which we ourselves saw in the book of exodus when the law was given and the people standing below at a distance absolutely terrified by what was happening and the writer says it's not like that for us the revelation of the eternal kingdom although so dazzling and full of uh things which make us filled with all nevertheless it's one which beckons and says come and receive and look to jesus who is our mediator causing us to receive that invitation our great high priest who in the imagery of this epistle has opened the gate to allow us access to the eternal city while still being strangers and pilgrims walking this journey an individual journey for each one of us which involves pain and hardship as well as joy and glory and pleasure and those things are given to us by god as the writer says to to train us as christ himself embraced that vocation of the cross and we remember once again his kneeling and praying that he might be released from that in the garden of gethsemane but then those words nevertheless your will be done we have quotations from the prophet isaiah from chapter 35 about strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees images of pilgrims on the way needing strength to go on and we think of those things this morning as we read that penultimate chapter of this epistle tomorrow we will complete that chapter and uh sorry complete this epistle and and leave those sacramental images to be lived out through the christmas period and then we will go next week to the the various lessons which lead us to christmas itself but for this morning we're once again thanking this unknown writer of the epistle to the hebrews and many have had guesses as to who it was but what we do know is that so much of our eucharistic liturgical language when we meet to break bread and share the cup of wine poured out for us and for many for the forgiveness of sins to contemplate jesus is our great high priest the imagery is dependent upon this particular epistle and as we read it today the word is be steadfast endure perseverance that's the word that was given right at the beginning looking to jesus for encouragement the author and perfecter the pioneer and finisher of our faith who walks with us and brings us to the eternity of the quality of the kingdom of heaven mount zion as the psalmist calls that kingdom for as the chapter ended our god is a consuming fire that's not a terrifying thing but a hopeful thing and one has a sense and we shall come across that in our reflection in a moment of uh elijah on the mountain top where storm and tempest and fear passing by and then suddenly there was silence and in the old translation the still small voice and in that stillness god speaks to him let's think about some of our dates for today together we're going to uh look at one or two things this morning and the dates are good ones the 17th of december is the day on which pope francis was born so we wish him a happy 85th birthday today and give thanks for his ministry and the things which he teaches as a franciscan but also as one uh who takes risks uh and is full of of of love and compassion for those who he meets so um happy birthday to pope francis this morning and then on this day i'm thinking about blessing the christmas trees a bit later on and the the festive singing of carols in the open air by the cathedral staff this is the day uh when charles dickens began to inscribe the pre-publication copies for friends of his new short novella shall we call it which he called a christmas carol difficult to think of christmas without that book being in our minds i read it last year and it's still online but we always read it as a preparation allowed as a preparation for our christmas just a bit nearer christmas than this because we're still technically in advent even though we're blessing christmas trees this morning but as christmas goes forward that book is one which gives a wonderful atmosphere of good heartedness and encouragement only 10 pre-publication copies what a gift to receive and then on the 19th of december at two days time a general publication of that book and by christmas eve the whole edition was sold out it was an instant success and who can wonder dickens carefully had prepared six thousand copies of a first edition but all had gone by christmas eve and instantly it was reprinted of course it's never been out of print since and it's been made into christmas stories christmas musicals christmas films but best of all the language of the writing well i want to go on now to we'll come back to charles dickens in a moment with the the third of our people this morning but i want first of all to say that on this day the 17th of december in 1957 the writer dorothy l sayers died now we know her as a writer of detective fiction and we think of her lord peter whimsy books we know her also as one of the best translators of dante's divine comedy and she did that for the penguin classics and it's in three volumes with many illustrations and i think it's one of the clearest and and and best of the translations of dante's divine comedies but it's not that i want to say today i want to talk about the way in which she used words we've talked about the reading of dickens and we'll come back to that in in a bit but for the moment i want to talk about the way in which dorothy's l sayers used words at a time when radio was taking off and was the way in which people listened to drama to stories to news and in the 1930s she began this kind of ministry over the airwaves of the human voice in drama or simply by reading the art of radio we're talking about and uh i want to start here in canterbury because in 1936 margaret babington who was the very powerful secretary of the friends of the cathedral and i said this morning that uh at 9am we're meeting to bless the trees and sing carols with the cathedral staff and have uh good mugs of hot chocolate put before us and and then to wish each other a happy christmas but later on uh at 12 o'clock at the end of a chapter meeting because we have a chapter meeting between times the friends of the cathedral are meeting around those same trees in the open air to sing their carols so we'll see more carols this morning but she was the the secretary of the friends for many years and a powerful influence on this place and she went to dorothy l sayers and said could you write us a play the most famous of the plays are of course elliot's murder in the cathedral but miss babington went to dorothy el-sayers and asked for a play for the canterbury festival and dorothea says wrote a play called the zeal of thy house and afterwards it was performed here uh partly by amateurs local people and partly by professionals but after its performance it was also taken to the west end and it also appeared on radio i found this morning when i was looking things up in this way that you can still hear it on radio if you actually uh search for it the zeal of thy house and dorothea sayers went to the story of the way in which this the cathedral after the great fire of 1174 following beckett's uh murder in 1170 the cathedral was rebuilt and the chapter were looking for an architect and they went to a frenchman guillaume de salle and this is the story of his finding but it starts in the courts of heaven with the the angels the archangels and they announce themselves with trumpets and you hear all that on radio it's a very powerful medium because in listening to drama on radio or stories being read of course your own imagination is working and sometimes it's very difficult later when you see things that you had imagined and you think oh no no that's not how i imagined that personal at all but dorothea says use that medium so in 1937 she wrote the play uh the zeal of thy house and that was performed here and then once again here's a bell starting for uh one of the early services um once again she was asked to write another play and this time it was for the play in 1939 before the the second world war broke out it was performed in june at the friends festival and that was called the devil to pay and she based it on the legend of faust but located it elsewhere but there was a sort of mephistopheles character in that but once again we're on the power of words which was then a prelude to a series on the radio which she wrote and was broadcast during the weeks the hard weeks of the second world war for this nation between 1941 and 1942 the very depths of the world war and this was a series of 12 plays on the life of jesus looking unto jesus the author and finisher of our faith she was the first one to try this at such lengths and depths on radio and it was called the man born to be king and once again one can delve into archives and and hear that still it was first broadcast on the 21st of december just before christmas 1941 a really hard time and before ever the awful abidica raid which rained bombs down on this place but it went month by month by months in 12 episodes on sunday evenings every four weeks and gave heart to the nation and also set out in an imaginative way the life of jesus of nazareth from birth right through to the end in a kind of harmony if we go back to uh nicholas pharah and the little giddy family a harmony of the gospels and also some some imaginative bits of her own and it ended on october the 18th 1942 by which time so much of this city lay in ruins and parts of the cathedral were also in ruins having high explosive bombs rained down on them in the june of that year all that time those radio plays went through helping the morale of the nation and causing people to look to jesus on a hard part of the journey where uh the writer to the hebrew says use those as times of training for endurance and patience and waiting for the gifts of god and your particular vocation as you go day by day offering with thanksgiving the hours of the day so we give great thanks for the the words of dorothy elsae and the way in which those words were used no pictures of course in the play it was drama and when her plays were put on in the west end drama with people watching but on the radio simply people sitting in their own homes and being given material to imagine and material of the kind which they could delve back into the scriptures or imagine in their own lives what their own journey might be [Music] now the next person is a man called john greenleaf whittier and he was born on december the 17th 1807 and died on september the 7th 1892 and he was born in massachusetts on a farm there to a family not well off but devout quakers and he himself grew up as a quaker and kept to that devotion through his life that was his background and there were his roots he was a poet and also a a a very firm abolitionist he wrote pamphlets against the slave trade against the keeping of slaves and and suffered for it but at the same time he kept going and at the same time also was writing his poetry and as we think of him we remember him not only because they were too poor first of all to to educate him at school not only learning his lessons at home but also reading books on being a quaker which is father owned and the stress of the society of friends on humanitarianism compassion and social responsibility and also periods of reflective silence sitting together sometimes speaking if moved to do so sometimes reading sometimes quoting but all of that from his massachusetts background and he never really strayed far from there although for periods of his life he worked elsewhere but massachusetts was home ground and this looking to jesus becomes so much part of his poetry one of his more famous uh books was called snowbound it was published in 1866 and and that shows his capacity to describe natural scenes and the snowscape of massachusetts at wintertime but the next year he managed to obtain a ticket for a reading by charles dickens dickens himself was going to be reading his books and in his journal the the the next day or the day after perhaps whittier wrote my eyes ached all next day from the intensity of my gazing i do not think his voice naturally particularly fine but he uses it with great effect he has wonderful dramatic power i like him better than any public reader i have ever before heard well there's praise indeed from whittier but at the same time whittier wrote verses that we ourselves tune into using those qualities which i set out from his quaker roots and his own development as he went through life from 1876 to 1892 he lived with cousins at oak knoll in massachusetts but well rooted still in that rural atmosphere and uh there in the end he died but i want to read a poem you'll recognize it at once for one very good reason and this is actually part of a poem that you wrote but we know it well dear lord and father of mankind forgive our foolish ways reclose us in our rightful mind in purer lives thy service find in deeper reverence praise in simple trust like those who heard beside the syrian sea the gracious calling of the lord let us like them obey his word rise up and follow thee oh sabbath rest by galilee o calm of hills above where jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity interpreted by love with that deep hush subduing all are words and works that drown the tender whisper of thy call as noiseless let thy blessing fall as fell thy manner down drop thy still dues of quietness till all our strivings cease take from our souls the strain and stress and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace breathe through the heats of our desire thy coolness and thy balm let sense be dumb let flesh retire speak through the earthquake wind and fire o still small voice of calm but of course we know it because it's been set to music and made into a hymn and those six verses because of the hymn are almost written on our hearts and minds and yet for him it was the power of words which had distilled from his own silences and his own looking to jesus in human situations as jesus knelt in prayer in galilee and shall we say recharge the energy that was being taken from him by the earthly ministry all the time and then in the same way looking at those who had heard the first call and in the silence of his devotion hearing that call again and rising up like the disciples on the lakeside to follow jesus all of those things some of the hymn books have translated that round so that it's not as the thou language in fact i like to think of the the thou language particularly with whitia because quakers kept thee thou thy even amongst themselves for a long time because of course that is the second person singular of the english language you your is the second person plural of the english language and the v thou shows an intimacy like the french tu rather than vu meaning i know you well and we have a close relationship and not only was that used for god in the visal form but also for one another in the quaker communities showing that there was a depth of understanding and intimacy so to keep that second person singular although it's old-fashioned actually reminds us of our deep intimacy with the creator which jesus himself has given to us as a gift and also the capacity for understanding and encouragement even when we sit in silence in prayer which whittier would have done many many times but let's just speak about the tune because uh in the earlier hymnbooks and i remember this in the old hymns engine and modern there was a tune which is still very popular on the other side of the atlantic it was simply called rest by a composer fc maker and it went dear lord and father of mankind forgive our foolish ways re-clothe us in our rightful mind in pure our lives thy service find in deeper reverence praise some of you listening will know that but here the him has been taken over by a tune culled from the composer uh hubert parry's great oratorio judith and that tune was then set to dear lord and father of mankind and that begins dear lord and father of mankind forgive our foolish ways set it a bit low even for me and that's the one that it tends to be sung now but whatever tune you have use that tune to rekindle your devotion to the words because they are giving us all those images not only which the uh writer to the hebrews is giving us of looking to jesus constantly and also allowing ourselves time for stillness and reflection even in the middle of the strain and stress and waiting to hear the still small voice even in the uh climatic conditions of the the way in which things can be thrown at us and and we constantly had to be helping one another in human scenes in this world they are beautiful verses and uh we give thanks for whittier but think of him sitting listening spellbound to charles dickens reading and i'm sure that part of that reading would have been christmas carol because of course everyone asked for it once he'd written it it was there there's another poem by whittier which is quite different and sometimes it's set out on little cards on people's mantelpieces and it's called don't quit and it dwells on the fact that quite often one is tempted to give up but you've almost reached the last bit of the journey and when the going goes mostly very hard in order to to do that don't quit so we think of witcher in that way too well now let's say our prayers on this particular day before i go off to sing christmas carols with the staff and we're thinking today uh in the anglican communion and praying for the diocese of aquari in the niger delta province of the church of nigeria and in our own diocese were given general prayers so i'm actually going to pray for our own cathedral staff and the friends of the cathedral on this day as they begin their preparations for christmas outside in the open air for everyone's welfare not too cold a morning and although there's a thin cloud a dawn has now broken so that i can see my books let's then say our prayers together first the advent um colleague for this week and then the advent college itself as we do so we remember archbishop justin and bishop rose of dover and bishop emma at lambeth in their episcopal ministry as we always do here is the colic for this week o lord jesus christ who at your first coming sent your messenger to prepare your way before you grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready your way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just that at your second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in your sight for you are alive and reign with the father in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen and now the advent collect itself bring your own prayers and intentions almighty god give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to us in great humility that on the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language you like to use 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 reflection now on this morning of advent as christmas draws even nearer [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] [Music] is [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] [Music] today from us [Music] is [Music] peace [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is christ the son of righteousness shine upon you scatter the darkness from before your path and make you ready to meet him when he comes in glory 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 are men in all the stresses and strains of political life and leadership we would want to congratulate the prime minister and carry for the birth of their daughter now named romy iris so god bless her on this day as i go off to sing carols and you will probably be preparing christmas time in whatever way you can across the world you