good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of wednesday the 18th of august welcome wherever you are in the world and bring your prayers and intentions and concerns as we say our morning prayers together on this wednesday morning our prayers obviously are still very much for the people of afghanistan at this time very much and so we keep them absolutely in our hearts and minds but also those in grave danger still from so many fires burning across the world in different places and areas of flooding as well fires in the eastern mediterranean and across the north africa into algeria and morocco fires in the western parts of the united states and canada the dixie fire in california still not really um under control and still burning and in algeria we've had news from mulud from our garden congregation that in kabila they've had some rain but everything feels just like a desert the the town uh deserted but villagers helping one another and this has been a pulling together he says of of the algerian people and there's great gratitude for that so we remember all those things this morning and our mind will be filled with those images from the media and from any kind of television and front page newspaper photographs bring those images to our prayers because we can hold the whole world in prayer with our god and congregation this morning let's begin our prayers o 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 creator of all to you 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 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 our psalm on this 18th morning of the month is the majestic psalm 90 which takes as its theme the rolling sweep of time lord you have been our refuge from one generation to another before the mountains were brought forth or the earth and the world were formed from everlasting to everlasting you are god you turn us back to dust and say turn back o children of earth for a thousand years in your sight our butters yesterday which passes like a watch in the night you sweep them away like a dream they fade away suddenly like the grass in the morning it is green and flourishes in the evening it is dried up and withered for we consume away in your displeasure we are afraid at your wroteful indignation you have set our misdeeds before you and our secret sins in the light of your countenance when you are angry all our days are gone our years come to an end like a sigh the days of our life are three score years and ten or if our strength endures even for score yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow for they soon pass away and we are gone who regards the power of your roth and your indignation like those who fear you so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom turn again no lord how long will you delay have compassion on your servants satisfy us with your loving kindness in the morning that we may rejoice and be glad all our days give us gladness for the days you have afflicted us and for the years in which you have seen we in which we have seen adversity show your servants your works and let your glory be over their children may the gracious favor of the lord our god be upon us prosper our handiwork oh prosper the work of our hands it's a sound which gives us the sense of everything being a gift held in god's hands for whom time is as nothing and yet time given to humankind is a precious gift and everything is in the present tense when it speaks of god now and that is very much jesus's habit of god in the present tense receiving the gift of this day before the mountains were brought forth or the earth and the world were formed from everlasting to everlasting you are god present tense past tense thinking in time present tense when thinking of god and his gifts and all of that becomes intensely important as we go forward and see the way in which jesus offers the gifts of god to us in the present tense day by day the gift of this new day we always say at the beginning of our morning prayers at matins early morning in the cathedral this morning our old testament lesson was taken from the book of proverbs and chapter nine and as we read that first part of chapter nine in the book of proverbs first of all i was taken back to the title that t e lawrence gave to his autobiography and then after that i realized we were in a parable and a parable just like our lord tells and maybe it influenced the way in which he tells them but if we think also of of our orders the eternal word uh in the beginning was the word very often wisdom with a capital letter is is is likened to that eternal word in creation but here's the beginning of chapter nine of proverbs i'm going on to genesis don't worry we're only reading uh six verses from proverbs but it seemed to be apt this morning wisdom has built her house she has hewn her seven pillars she has slaughtered her beasts she has mixed her wine she has also set her table she has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town whoever is simple let them turn in here to the one who lacks scents she says come eat of my bread and drink of the wine i have mixed leave your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight this wonderful setting of the feast and bread and wine rather like melchizedek yesterday bread and wine being the symbol of that being invited into the banquet not only here but of the kingdom of heaven but it's wisdom who is calling and sending out the servants and into the town and it will get a mixed response but there's a little parable which our lord would have known and you can think instantly of parables that he tells in the same way let's um let's say look that was just a point of interest uh in parenthesis shall we say let's just look there at the book of genesis and see where we're going this morning i'm going to start in chapter 15 as i said we won't be reading the whole of genesis we will connect the story though as it goes through so that it's in our mind and also reflects on old and new testament thinking with stories from the old testament as well so here's chapter 15 verses 1 to 6 and then i'll go on to the whole of chapter 16. after these things the word of the lord came to abram in a vision fear not abram i am your shield your reward shall be very great but abram said o lord god what will you give me for i continue childless and the heir of my house is eliezer of damascus and abram said behold you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir and behold the word of the lord came to him this man shall not be your heir your very own son shall be your heir and he brought abram outside and said look towards heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them then he said to him so shall your offspring be and abram believe the lord and he counted it to him as righteousness so i'm going on now to chapter 16. now sarai abram's wife had borne him no children she had a female egyptian servant whose name was hagar and sarai said to abram behold now the lord has prevented me from burying children go into my servant it may be that i shall obtain children by her and abram listened to the voice of sarai so after abram had lived 10 years in the land of kenyan sarai abram's wife took hagar the objection her servant and gave her to abram her husband as a wife and he went into hagar and she conceived and when she saw that she had conceived hagar looked with contempt on her mistress and sarai said to abram may the wrong done to me be on you i gave my servant to your embrace and when she saw that she had conceived she looked on me with contempt may the lord judge between you and me but abram said to sarai behold your servant is in your power do to her as you please then sarai dealt harshly with her and hagar fled from her the angel of the lord found hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness the spring on the way to sher and he said hagar servant of sarai where have you come from and where are you going and hagar said i am fleeing from my mistress sarai the angel of the lord said to her return to your mistress and submit to her the angel of the lord also said to her i will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude and the angel of the lord said to her behold you are pregnant and shall bear a son you shall call his name ishmael because the lord has listened to your affliction he shall be a wild donkey of a man his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen so she called the name of the lord who spoke to her you are a god of seeing for she said truly here i have seen him who looks after me therefore the well was called beer lahai roy it lies between kadesh and berid and hagar bore abram a son and abram called the name of his son whom hagar bore ishmael abram was 86 years old when hagar bore ishmael to abram well that story gives us not only the way in which the covenant which abram was patiently waiting to be fulfilled was then something that humankind couldn't wait any longer for longer for and sarai suggesting to abram that they have no sun the time is running out for them abraham's still having god's promise that your own son will be the one who carries forward everything i intended but how hard to wait for years in patience sometimes for humankind living in time one remembers this the psalm again and uh that psalm 90 of course is paraphrased beautifully by isaac watts in the him oh god i help in ages past i hope for years to come and think of those verses time like an ever rolling stream there's all its sons away they fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day it's an impatience about the shortness of our time that sometimes causes us to go forward too hastily and here's sarai suggesting to abraham this is a joint decision and it still waits many years before abram says very well let's let's do this and going into hagar and the difficulty of course is that the effect on hagar is to make her proud that she is bearing abram's child and treats sarai with disdain all these human mixings of different personalities and very understandable feelings and the way in which things go forward but it's interesting to see how the act of disobedience very understandable disobedience in terms of not wanting to wait any longer for god's promise to be fulfilled and then ishmael being born and being looked after and being given a promise that he too will be the father of a nation but at the same time this wasn't the promise that god intended and so all these things are not only part of the divine moving forward in time from the one who to whom time means nothing at all time is just a gift given to us in the shortness of our life in creation and the shortness of all created life and at the same time we think of the way in which saint paul uses that sign the epistle to the galatians one of his earlier epistles and in that you will remember that in chapter four go back to it and read galatians four sin paul uses hagar and sarah as he calls her as her name will become later in the story we're reading hagar and sarah as allegories oftentimes the stories are given that kind of meaning and we only understand that if we go back to the old testament stories that's why we are in the book of genesis where all beginnings are but st paul brought up in in in that culture of his own people and now teaching that to galatians in a completely different area and a different culture needing to understand how the foundation stones of jesus's own community was set in place yesterday at evensong we read the story of the martyrdom of stephen and stephen addressing the council in the same way begins to talk about the history of abraham and the way in which the covenant was given that will come to us in a great way later on in the genesis story think of zechariah and elizabeth also waiting patiently and unbelieving that god can do this and that sentence which gabriel says to mary about zechariah and elizabeth for with god nothing will be impossible and this is the undergirding of this whole story yet we go back to the way jesus uses abraham and isaac and j and jacob always in the present tense i am the god of abraham isaac and jacob with him time means nothing and the gift is the gift of the new day in all its freshness so we give thanks for these pictures of old time which translate themselves first of all into the mind of jesus sometimes his parables as the book of proverbs and sometimes also as the way in which he gives us the gifts of god in the present tense fresh each day and points to the whole of creation as the lesson that is being given with the freshness of the new day we see then how the mixture of god's plan and the willing obedience of the one who is being called is carried out in the middle of a mixture of human emotions very strong human emotions and the story of abraham and sarai and hagar is a case in point how things change and how people feel differently when the kind of happenings to them are not only emotional ones but physical ones too how hagar suddenly changes around in her attitude towards her mistress how sari is filled with a different kind of feeling towards hagar and how abram feels the necessity to back his wife in this and all of that has results in the way things go forward well there are three particular dates i wanted to mention today which are a mixture of human emotions in in in this way and the way in which uh illusions going forward and imaginings which no doubt hagar had when she felt she was carrying her master's child all of those things can lead people in wrong directions the the first date i wanted to mention is the the birth in 1933 of the filmmaker ronan polanski and i only want to mention one of his films and that is a very famous one tess based on tests of the derbyvilles in thomas hardy could there ever be a more tragic story and everything there based on tess's imagination imaginings fed by people around her and thinking of herself as one of the derbevilles not just tess in her own uh station with her her mother and and and her father and all of those things which have been fed by other people's imaginings in promptings and yet there are kind hands around her and there are kind people around her but the way in which the relationships that she has with angel claire and then with the with alec durbaville all of those are almost poisoned by an expectation going forward it's a tragic story as so many of thomas hardy's novels are but in this if tess could just get rid of that sense of the illusion of being something other and receive the gift of what's there the quality of her own life and those around her wanting to help becomes much more evident now that's totally simplistic in terms of how human beings are how they behave but it does put it in the context of realizing our responsibility for one another when we're feeding uh different emotions uh in into people or or causing them to have imaginings which really lead in in different directions and bad directions and if i go on to another novelist a bit like thomas hardy but french this time honored balzac and look at his book liz illusion perdue lost illusions the where uh in this case it's not a chess a young girl is lucia the young man who is lucian chardonn and he has expectations of grandeur because he finally finds a connection there with the de roubron pray family and begins to call himself instead as he goes into the fine life and enters the salons of various great ladies he begins to call himself by that name lucian de lubron pray and the expectations cause him to be difficult with friends and and in some ways a treacherous towards friends who were good for him and all the way through these books you're feeling oh don't go there don't go there that's but we are acting like gods when we're reading a novel because we have the oversight in that way what we have with the messages of of jesus from the creator is that god wills our good always but time needs patience even in human terms a thousand years in your sight or as yesterday like a watch in the night and both those books and balzac of course wrote so many novels about the human condition but lucia is a good image on this morning as with tess a good image and hagar a good image but the reaction of sarai absolutely natural and of abram all of that but tragedy is in the middle that and uh that kind of patience in the middle of all this activity is is a hard thing to to receive the last date i wanted to mention this morning is of the composer's birth salieri who was born in 1750 now if salieri um is known to you well probably unless you're great followers of classical music probably you know him from that magnificent film amadeus where salieri feels himself to be but average compared to mozart who bursts onto the emperor's court like a a blazing firework lighting it up with sparkles and and genius and deep in his heart the court composer salieri knows it and feels himself to be simply average and can't accept that and the secret hostility in the film towards mozart becomes potent it's uh a film which is so strong that probably rather like tess the polanski film of tess becomes so strong in its imagery and certainly the use not only of the marriage of figaro where the emperor is listening to the way in which mozart describes things and salieri is standing back saying to god i've served you always and yet you give genius to this person and listen to him where is the faithfulness in all of that and the puzzle of human life with regard to the will of god is something that it has to be simply accepted for one's own call and the following of that obedience but at the same time the use of the requiem in that film is so great that i i can't hear parts of the requiem now without those without these images coming into mind such is the power of filmmakers and modern media and we become people who are taken in by an interpretation as well all these things happening within a human context and giving us insight into how human beings feel with strong passions and the shortness of their time within the gifts of the creator so that each day does become a new day when god's gifts are given fresh and have to be perceived which we try to do in our reflections i was remembering in all this uh an old parable and i don't know whether it's esop or lafanten or anything but i brought out a basket of eggs because it reminded me of that parable of the young girl who in being asked to take the eggs her own eggs to the market and thinking i'm going to go and sell them and then and she's got them on her head do you remember as she walks along very carefully with a precious basket of eggs on her head these eggs are hers and their seed corn from the way her life might go forward and she imagines and imagines and imagines so far forward until all that she has made and then doubled and tripled and everything else running on ahead of her in her dreams causes her to think of herself as a fine lady and uh being bowed to by a gentleman and she finds her body cut seeing and pounding her head in the road and all the eggs fall onto the floor and smash and there are her dreams from a moment's inattention it's it's a parable and just as the parable of the invitation to the wedding feast of jesus which is is uh prefigured in the verses from proverbs all of those stories but the way in which we see stories and our our lord gives us stories and also anchors them in the stories he knew from the old testament stories of melchizedek coming out to give abram bread and wine the king of peace and the king of righteousness wonderful gifts suddenly appearing from nowhere and sometimes the gifts of god do and we in our prayers pray for both patients but also care for one another throughout the world the welfare of each other in these very dangerous times as we see those images strongly across the world and the passions of humanity which can go in very different directions and become encouraged in a way that that are become harmful to one another well let's go on then with our prayers this morning and we are praying this morning in the anglican communion on this 18th morning of the month for the diocese of central ecuador the episcopal church of the united states and for justin our archbishop and also for rose bishop of dover and tim bishop at lambeth were still praying for the auspringe area deanery those areas around the little town of favicham and borton underbelin and all those areas around there and we'll begin to name them through but today we're praying for all those who have chaplaincy work in that area of our diocese for organizations schools and communities and pray for them and give thanks for their ministry so let's say our prayer for today bringing your own prayers and intentions giving thanks to god for the gift of this new day and for the hours given within it here's the collect for this week oh god you declare your almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace that we running the way of your commandments may receive your gracious promises and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure through jesus christ our lord amen so in whatever language you like to say it 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 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 say our own morning prayers the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god 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 amen so food you