good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this thursday the 22nd of october how different two days can be in october yesterday with streaming rain which never let up and today with a beautiful sunrise a golden sunrise of autumn as the leaves fall and birds are singing in the trees i'm sitting underneath the old mulberry tree and of course mulberries have a special resonance with canterbury because of the beckett's connection but their fruits if you sit underneath them particularly if you're wearing anything light colored are not exactly helpful to you because they're they're staining in a an amazing way however we're past the season of mulberry fruits now and we're thinking today of many things on this date in years gone by some of them are deeply ecological about our world and some are creative and good and some are as always humorous let's begin with the facts just to cheer us up that this is wombat day in australia and that wonderful almost looking cuddly marsupial very very near neighbor to uh uh should we say cousin to the koala bear but a great digger into the ground and uh as the wombat is is is critically endangered at the moment then australia is is thinking of that on this wombat day and here's a happy little poem that was written about wendy the wombats that might give you the sense of the wombat beneath the surface of the earth beneath the green and sodden turf wendy wombat supreme digger raced to make her tunnels bigger pulling dirt with mighty claws and toiling hard without a paws and sconce within her little pouch so small they had no need to crouch her children slept all warm and dry as mud and dirt went flying by quite unaware how nature planned to lend them all a helping hand for wombat pouches don't get full of dirt and mud as mummies pull for mother nature in her wisdom looked upon her magic kingdom saw the wombats underground and wisely turned their pouches round well may a little poem like that remind you that the wombats pouch is actually open at the back so when they when they dig the the the infants in the pouch are not endangered because uh the the pouch is behind and opening backwards well uh a fact of ecology but that that uh marsupial is in critical danger and that's one of our ecological problems let's think too that in 1707 four ships of the royal navy commanded by admiral sir cloudsley shovel wonderful name were wrecked on rocks near the silly islands and 1400 sailors were drown because people had not solved the problem of longitude and it required an accurate time piece to do that and those of you who've maybe seen the the documentary uh longitude which reenacts that will realize that the the solving of that which took years after 1707 became really crucial to navigation we've seen that with saint paul as he sailed across the mediterranean then again as we look this is a day when we remember that in 1990 the alarm was given by the royal geographical society of the disappearance of the aral sea in the then soviet union now between kazakhstan and uzbekistan the fourth largest freshwater lake in the world and it's more or less disappeared kazakhstan has has given an enormous push to policies to try and and bring parts of it back but it was the policy of turning two major rivers away from it to grow cotton that caused that great lake that the the force the first being that the caspian sea and the second lake superior in the northern uh united states and the third lake victoria and africa and then the aral sea and it's gone and all the almost puddles as you look left are now so saline and poisonous they cannot be used so millions of people have had to move away an ecological and environmental disaster too many things to think about but what i do remember in 1962 on this day was the speech of john f kennedy which began the cuban missile crisis and the whole world certainly my parents and and and all of us at school believed that we were about to enter full nuclear war i remember some of the fear of all of that in these october days in 1962. there are other things that we'll think of later on but in 1938 it's just humorous chester carlson invented the photocopier and he tried to sell it to ibm and kodak and all of him and they said they saw no use in a gadget that makes nothing but copies seems to me that we couldn't do without that kind of photocopier these days and so it was a bad call on their part let's start our prayers on this lovely sunny morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you creator of all to be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep 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 o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 22nd morning of the month is psalm 107. it actually is an immensely apt psalm on this morning for all the things we've just been thinking about and i'm going to start reading it from verse 23 it's a long song and it begins with those sailing on the seas in fear of storm at that time those who go down to the sea in ships and ply their trade in great waters these have seen the works of the lord and his wonders in the deep for at his word the stormy wind arose and lifted up the waves of the sea they were carried up to the heavens and down again to the deep their soul melted away in their pedal they reeled and staggered like a drunkard and were at their wit's end then they cried to the lord in their trouble and he brought them out of their distress he made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were calmed then were they glad because they were at rest and he brought them to the haven they desired let them give thanks to the lord for his goodness and the wonders he does for his children let them exalt him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the counsel of the elders [Music] the lord turns rivers into wilderness and water springs into thirsty ground a fruitful land he makes a salty waste because of the wickedness of those who dwell there he makes the wilderness a pool of water and water springs out of a thirsty land and there he settles the hungry and they build a city to dwell in they sow their fields and plant vineyards and bring in a fruitful harvest he blesses them so that they multiply greatly he does not let their herds of cattle decrease he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes they are diminished and brought low through stress of misfortune and sorrow but he raises the poor from their misery and multiplies their families like flocks of sheep the upright will see this and rejoice but all wickedness will shut its mouth whoever is wise will ponder these things and consider the lovingkindness of the lord beautiful water being turned into a salty waste by policies of governments but then again the ability of making that a fruitful land once more but the planet always takes time to recover and good policies so as we turn to our letter of saint paul to the philippians we are now halfway through chapter 2 and i'm beginning at verse 14. do all things without grumbling or disputing say that you may be blameless and innocent children of god without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast to the word of life so that in the day of christ i may be proud that i did not run in vain or labor in vain even if i am to be poured out as a libation upon the sacrificial offering of your faith i am glad and rejoice with you all likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me i hope in the lord jesus to send timothy to you soon so that i too may be cheered by news of you for i have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare for they all seek their own interests not those of jesus christ but you know timothy's proven worth how like a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel i hope therefore to send him just as soon as i see how it will go with me and i trust in the lord that shortly i myself will come also [Music] i have thought it necessary to send to you epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier and your messenger and minister to my need for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill indeed he was very ill near to death but god had mercy on him and not only on him but on me also lest i should have sorrow upon sorrow i am the more eager to send him therefore that you may rejoice in seeing him again and that i may be less anxious so receive him in the lord with all joy and honor all such men for he nearly died for the work of christ risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me well that gives the sense of paul longing to be with the philippians we've seen that all the way through and longing also for them to have news but let's remember also that that news must be carried by a messenger through dangerous journeys such as we've been speaking about and those dangerous journeys could be on sea or by land they have sent him one of their own epiphanitis who has been with him and who became ill as we heard and paul feared that he would die but he's recovered so he is going back because he's become homesick when he's heard how worried his own people are about him and paul sends all these messengers as if they were paul himself which is a really lovely thing so i'm just wanting to look at the verse which is the end of 15 and the beginning of 16 is an interesting verse we could translate it you may be blameless and innocent children of god without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among you among whom you shine as stars in the world holding fast to the word of life there are three words in that which in the greek come together world and word and life cosmos logos zoe in the greek and the moment we say them i'll give your memory a slight prod world and word and life we find ourselves in the territory of the first chapter of st john's gospel now don't think for a second that paul is quoting that for st john's gospel was certainly not written when paul is writing this letter to the philippians but you see how ideas are developing and this word for world which is used cosmos is not a word which means earth the earth the gaze the land it is something that means the ordering of the world by human society as opposed to god's order the ordering of the cosmos and paul wants to bring them into line but in the middle of that cosmos like stars guiding sailors are those christian churches and those individual christians that he is so proud of it's a wonderful concept but it reminds us too that the philippians don't have the gospels to read nor do they have anything except a few epistles from sinful which in those days were certainly not considered scripture their life is made up with what is told them and what they hear and also the greek old testament the septuagint as it was called which actually those books were to them all of that gives us a different flavor of how the word was communicated and how it was beginning to develop of course those epistles of paul would be bound into what we call the new testament and of course those gospels would be written but here they are developing and paul himself uses words like world and word and life to express that and sends it in a letter and sends it also verbally and physically by messengers whom he calls apostles like himself and ministers and that word too in the letter is given a priestly kind of context so that what epithetis is doing to sin paul is bringing the life of the philippians in a priestly way by the sacrifice of giving himself there and in the same way when he goes back and when timothy goes back that will be a sacrificial service as the christians in philippi break bread together in the meeting room of where they are as a community developing at that time it's also early in the life of the church and so fresh but everything is also so dangerous and difficult and paul is keeping timothy by him to see what the result of his own trial will be before he sends timothy with that news and hopefully will then if it turns out well will actually come himself but his sense of this being a letter of farewell as a letter of ritual as well as a letter of rejoicing is ever present paul and john and today also that reminds me that this is the anniversary of the inauguration to the papacy what in older times would have been called a coronation of john paul ii john paul ii who was an outside candidate in 1978 john paul the first had died and he had died after only about a month as pope and the next election brought this outside candidate from poland the first non-italian pope for hundreds of years since the early 16th century and someone who would shape and change the course of history in the late 20th century we remember his constant visiting everywhere remember his visit here to light a candle for the martyr maximilian colbert and to pray with the archbishop of canterbury in canterbury cathedral in 1982. all of those things are present in that long ministry and the fact that things turned as they did by the millennium had so much to do with the way in which that travelling with the gospel meant that people saw someone who was sacrificing his whole self in that even to the end when weak with parkinson's disease we saw him give that last blessing to the crowds below from the window of his chamber at onsen peter's square and then that was the marking of the physicality of pope john paul ii with all those people below we give thanks for that and for his faithfulness even to death and perhaps it's good to remember that the the word for saying hello and goodbye and rejoicing can often be the same in the greek of the new testament so those things are bound together on this morning as russell here rejoices in the sunshine and the fact that the wind and the rain have gone away on this beautiful morning and the small malay ceramic uh cockrell whom we rudely called titch always is rejoicing in the same way though his crow is not quite so deep so here we are with the prayers for today bring your own prayers now to our prayers as we say them in the anglican communion today we are praying for the diocese of raya lassima in south india and for the bishop prasada rayo and the diocese of cuanevae que novaca in mexico and enrique trevino cruz the bishop there and the also the diocese of curitiba in brazil and the bishop now de alves gomes she is also the primate of that province here we pray for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover for bishop tim at lambeth and today for the parish of saint peter in sanete and for jan duran's in the ministry there and the curate alice bates and all their community so as you bring your own prayers we remember all this all those who are in danger not only physical danger but also danger of health and those who are attempting to help and heal them on this day oh god for as much as without you we are not able to please you mercifully grant that your holy spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts through jesus christ our lord are men here we remember those three words world and word and life as we ask the in the prayer that our lord taught us that we ourselves in our lives may shine like stars which help people navigate in this world let's say the prayer that jesus taught us to say in whatever language we 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 amen moment of silence now for our own prayers on this day [Applause] [Applause] 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 those whom you would pray for today and always are men well russell this is a lovely morning for you and your wives to be up here