good morning and welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral on friday the 14th of january as we meet together to say our morning prayers once again it's a lovely morning of deep frost the lawn is covered in frost but we've come to this special place for this section of the story of ruth this morning and we're by the gate here from the garden into the dean's walk with the city wall around us and the procedural wall at the same time and a blue sky a beautiful blue sky above us and the sun is just coming up into that lovely blue sky so let's say our prayers this morning together bring your own concerns and intentions from across the world as we say morning prayer together and you'll hear outside the uh traffic of the city on its way to work but that helps us as well to think of the story when we come to it in bethlehem 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 king of the nations to you be praise and glory forever from the rising of the sun to its setting your name is proclaimed in all the world as the sun of righteousness dawns in our hearts anoint our lips with the seal of your spirit that we may witness to your gospel and sing your praise in all the earth 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 son this morning takes us to what we used as the epiphany psalm earlier in the month in psalm 72 which is one of the psalms for the fourteenth morning of the month give the king your judgment so god and your righteousness to the son of a king then shall he judge your people righteously and your poor with justice may the mountains bring forth peace and the little hills righteousness for the people may he defend the poor among the people deliver the children of the needy and crush the oppressor may he live as long as the sun and moon endure from one generation to another may he come down like rain upon the moon grass like the showers that water the earth in his time shall righteousness flourish and abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more may his dominion extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth may his foes kneel before him and his enemies lick the dust the kings of tarshish and of the isles shall pay tribute the kings of sheba and siba shall bring gifts all kings shall fall down before him all nations do him service for he shall deliver the poor that cry out the needy and those who have no helper he shall have pity on the weak and poor he shall preserve the lives of the needy he shall redeem their lives from oppression and violence and dear shall their blood be in his sight long may he live unto him may be given gold from sheba may prayer be made for him continually and may they bless him all the day long may there be abundance of grain on the earth standing thick upon the hilltops may its fruit flourish like lebanon and its grain grow like the grass of the field may his name remain forever and be established as long as the sun endures may all nations be blessed in him and call him blessed blessed be the lord the god of israel who alone does wonderful things and blessed be his glorious name forever may all the earth be filled with his glory our men are men it's a wonderful psalm exalting in the fruitfulness of the earth but almost calling to witness the lord's creation the sun and the moon one sentence as long as the moon endures and towards the end of the psalm as long as the sun endures but the rising of the sun and the son of righteousness a name for jesus himself is a sign of the epiphany light flooding the world with god's glory and at the same time there's illustrations of the harvest of rain coming down on them on the moon grass so that grass has already been harvested and the rain will give it refreshment but will also dry quite quickly in the heat of the sun as it's gathered for fodder and at the same time we hear of grain growing and the hilltops being covered thick upon the hilltops the harvest is ready for for reaping and as we've been reading a book exactly about those harvest fields of barley and wheat it's a good psalm for a sit this epiphany tied to read but there's one other thing perhaps i should say if you want a metrical version of that which one can sing then look to the hymn hail to the lord's anointed great david's greater son for that is a metrical version of that whole psalm but let's turn to the book that we've been reading to the story of ruth in the old testament sandwiched between the book of judges and the first book of samuel just four short chapters and a lovely story i'm going to read about two-thirds of chapter four today and then we shall complete the story with the last part tomorrow remember we are in bethlehem or ephrathah and we're in bethlehem at the time of the judges right back in the history of the old covenant the old testament as we call it and uh we're now continuing the story from where we left off with the advice that has been given to ruth by boaz and also her mother-in-law naomi and there's a lovely bond of love and faithfulness between those two and naomi says please don't worry because i know that what boaz has said he's a close kinsman of theirs one of their family uh what baras has said then he will do and he will effect quickly so here is chapter four now boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there and behold the redeemer of whom boaz had spoken came by so bearas said turn aside friend sit down here and he turned aside and sat down and he took ten men of the elders of the city and said sit down here so they all sat down then he said to the redeemer naomi who has come back from the country of moab is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative elimelech so i thought i would tell you of it and say buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people if you will redeem it redeem it but if you will not tell me that i may know for there is no one besides you to redeem it and i come after you and the man said i will redeem it then boaz said the day you buy the field from the hand of naomi you also acquire ruth the moabite the widow of the dead in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance then the redeemer said i cannot redeem it for myself lest i impair my own inheritance you take my right of redemption yourself for i cannot redeem it now this was the custom in former times in israel concerning redeeming and exchanging to confirm a transaction one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other and this was the manner of attesting in israel so when the redeemer said to boaz buy it for yourself he drew off his sandal then boaz said to the elders and all the people you are witnesses this day that i have bought from the hand of naomi all that belong to elimelech and all that belong to chilean and to marlon also ruth the moabite the widow of marlon i have bought to be my wife to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place you are witnesses this day then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said we are witnesses may the lord make the woman who is coming into your house like rachel and leia who together built up the house of israel may you act worthily in ephrathah and be renowned in bethlehem and may your house be like the house of perez whom tamar bore to judah because of the offspring that the lord will give you by this young woman well it's an interesting story but in fact already this morning the lesson from the gospel of saint matthew which was in chapter 22 which was read at matins in the cathedral much earlier on the lesson was talking about jesus in the outer courtyard of the temple and the herodians came first to test him or rather the pharisees came um to test him and if you remember they asked the question about is it lawful to pay tribute to the emperor and he says produce a coin and show me whose head an inscription this is then give to caesar what is caesar's and to god what is god's and then when they fail the sadducees came now this is the high priestly party who unlike the pharisees did not believe in a resurrection of the dead beyond death of any kind at all and they thought the notion ridiculous and so they come to jesus with a story up probably a made-up story and you'll remember it they said to him teacher moses said if a man dies having no children his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother now there were seven brothers among us the first married and died and having no offspring left his wife to his brother so to the second and third down to the seventh after them all the woman died in the resurrection therefore of the seven whose wife will she be for they all had her as a wife now i'm telling that story not because of jesus's answer to the sadducees which dusts them off immediately and gives a much wider perspective to this whole question but to show that those customs still pertained hundreds of years later that if a widow was left when her husband died young and could still bear children and she had none whatsoever then it was up to the next of kin to redeem that and to raise children with her and we find all this going on here with boaz and the redeemer as he's called who is the nearest kin to naomi's family and we heard that barack said to ruth yesterday go home and i will now do this properly and according to all our customs and according to our laws and so here we are in ancient bethlehem and don't forget it's quite a small community but uh all these people that he's calling had probably been at school together that the elders who sat down with him for boaz is a great man in the city clearly and has called them together and they seem to listen to what he's saying and the sense of sitting down by the gate meant a formality of something legal happening and first of all boaz has found the next of kin and brings the next of kin and sits him down first and then he's called the redeemer yes you get muddled with that word he has to redeem the property of naomi and also with that property comes ruth from moab but she had been the wife of the son of naomi and he had died and therefore she was left and uh the the the widow is is to be taken care of so the redeemer is settled beside boaz the next of kin and then ten good people of the elders of significant people in ephratha bethlehem at that time but no doubt there were other witnesses in the crowd looking on what on earth was happening and boaz sets the story out and sets it out first in terms of land purchase and says uh it's your duty if you are willing and able to buy that parcel of land which is what elimelech had left when he died and the redeemer says yes i'll buy the dan that's fine and bear zen says and be aware that with it comes the young woman who was his widow and the reviewer says now i can't do that because of the circumstances of my life so i cannot then buy the land i cannot be the redeemer so that means that the next one in line is boaz and boaz himself then takes it upon himself to be the redeemer and does the formal thing of taking off his sandal and and giving it so at that point this is something attested as they say by law that was the custom the sandal was taken off and given and that transaction was made this is a land transaction but there are duties we could call them conjugal duties that come with it and no one there knows anything of the uh relationship that boaz has already had with ruth in terms of respect and loyalty to someone who had loved her mother-in-law and who was also showing faithfulness to the the memory of her dead husband to raise children for him so at present is simply a legal transaction according to the old law and also a faithful duty according to the law and one remembers jesus's words i have not come to destroy the law and the prophets but to fulfill well we'll see how that is truly fulfilled tomorrow but meanwhile we see how that formal act of transaction is part of society then as it would be now in uh property being passed over but of course now there wouldn't be a human being attached to that property to be bought as well but here in this time there is and boaz is acting very honorably before witnesses and they recognize that and ask god's blessing on him all his friends from before so uh we've got here a story of respect and loyalty and a continuation of the rhythms of the seasons within bethlehem ephrathah and then the acting by contract and custom and the redeemer is heart and soul beginning to act i mean the redeemer boaz is heart and soul beginning to act according to love for ruth the moabite and tomorrow we will continue that to complete our story of ruth and boaz and ruth and naomi a rural story of harvests and the fruitfulness of the earth set in that context of the rhythm of country life i want today to concentrate on a particular vocation and it fits well with all this of grasping at gifts given and fruitfulness it's the vocation of albert schweitzer that we've dealt with before and he was born on this day 14th of january in 1875 and his his great sentence in all his works it's not always said in that way but undergirding everything is reverence for life and reverence for life um is something which caused him first of all to embrace a vocation as a deacon in the lutheran church and then he saw that that was not the vocation that was truly his being a deacon might be but this style of ministry was was not his now he'd been born in assassi and in 1875 uh strasbourg in alsace was actually in imperial germany but it had only been so for five years and so schweitzer's parents had been born and brought up in france for that alsatian countryside belonged to the french empire of napoleon iii until 1870 when there was of course a huge war between germany and france germany then had not become an empire it happened in 1870 but uh prussia and france she shall we say correctly then and the french were absolutely defeated and napoleon iii was taken prisoner and his his imperial reign ended but one of the prizes that imperial germany seized was alsace and loren and that suddenly became germany so schweitzer's parents instead of being french were suddenly german citizens and schweitzer therefore was brought up in a a kind of cultural limbo but at the same time he was brought up in the worship of the lutheran church and he was a musician of the first order and uh i was interested to see this morning that that uh rachmaninoff's last pupil to be living still ruth and and i've not got a surname here but you can look that up it's it's a news story this morning she is uh going to have a a performance on the piano recorded and made at the age of 97 and it is an extraordinary story she she herself was a child prodigy [Music] how are you today and what are you going to play for the audience i'm going to play a minuet in g major by becoming that's fine [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] and gave her first performance at the age of four can you believe it but was a pupil of rachmaninoff but let's go to schweitzer because he himself was was he a musician or was he a theologian or was he a doctor well in truth he was all three but the vocation was one that he kept developing in every direction and he began quite simply with this ministry of a deacon and then decided at the age of 30 that that wasn't enough for him but meanwhile let's look at his his musicianship because he was really an extraordinary musician both in terms of scholarship of the theory of music and also uh the way in which he could play the piano and the organ he made it his business to rescue historic pipe organs and understand their workings but at the same time he was totally devoted to the music of all kinds of music choral music as well particularly the organ music of j spark which he loved playing and in bach's religious music we're told he interpreted the use of pictorial and symbolical representation and astonished in 1899 he astonished vidor uh who was a friend of his by explaining figures and motifs in bach's chorale preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery based on themes from the hymn words on which they were based now he knew those hymn words inside out because he was a lutheran and sang them vidor didn't but he was talking about them as works of devotional contemplation in which musical design corresponded to literary ideas conceived visually and spiritually now if you think about the chorale preludes about they are generally quite soft works and quite quite um uh sensitive works i think of works like labester yuzu um which are so utterly beautiful on the stops of the organ our restored great organ is is really magic in playing these now but i've been at great occasions in places like westminster abbey sitting in the congregation with crowds for a special occasion when at first maybe 10 minutes before the service the organist is thundering away with something and then suddenly to give tranquility to the expectation of worship the organist will begin on a bach keral prelude and threaded through that coral prelude is the tune of a chorale a hymn and to schweinster who knew all the words of those hymns as we do when we hear a hymn tune the theology and pictures of that theology being given became important so much for his musicianship well now look here's our friend the robin which is wonderful you've come into the garden to join us and at the same time he was looking at his own theology so let's go on to the two great theological books that he wrote the quest of the historical jesus and the mysticism of saint paul the apostle the quest of the historical jesus if i quote um one great paragraph from that you'll see where we're going because we've been doing this all year schweitzer says he comes to us as one unknown without a name as of old by the lakeside he came to those men who knew him not he speaks to us the same word follow me and sets us to the task which he has to fulfill for our time he commands and to those who obey him whether they be wise or simple he will reveal himself in the toils the conflicts the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship as an ineffable mystery they shall learn in their own experience who he is that's the depth of uh schweitzer's lifelong partnership with the historical jesus in the present tense here but at the same time his mysticism of paul the apostle gives us a completely different picture of paul because he emphasizes not paul's great doctrine of the justification by faith but paul's great doctrine of what it means to be in christ and he saw that as the most important strand of paul's theology after baptism christians are continually renewed throughout their lifetime due to participation in the dying and rising with christ constantly affected by shared communal experience being in christ it's how we are embraced into that which is divine and reclaim our image in uh after the manner of of god himself being in christ claiming that a doctrine which christ taught us that we are children of god and can call him abba father well at 30 suddenly all that changed so he kept both those things going throughout his life and kept writing and kept playing and kept thinking and kept praying but suddenly he felt his vocation was in medicine and at the age of 30 in 1905 he answered a call of the society of the evangelist missions of paris for a physician and went to train himself for three years at university all over again as a doctor of medicine and he devoted himself then by using his musical gifts and also using his theological gifts but using practical gifts of christian healing now there's much we could say about all of that but his his life at the uh albert schweitzer hospital on the river agoe in what is now gabon was really something that the world noticed but he himself was far too interested in bringing health he was a child of his time and much of his thinking then was in uh aspects of the way things were but he was someone who developed all the way through and many of the ways he was thinking and and the many of the ways he was caring for the people there changed exponentially as he became older and older and he eventually he was he was interned by the germans because he was in sorry by the french because he was in german he was a german in french territory in the first world war and was brought back to france to be interned but at the same time he went back to gabon to his people and that hospital there at lamborghini became an icon of health and healing in the same way i wanted to do that because of the way in which the gifts of god which are being shown us in that country story and in the psalms and the vocation that christ gives to each of us different each day is never more shown than in something like that where someone is brave enough to say no that's not it it's this and i must set about doing that and we're back to that quote on the lake he commands and to those who obey him whether they be wise or simple he will reveal himself in the toils the conflicts the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship as an ineffable mystery they shall learn in their own experience in their own humanity who he is it's what being in christ means well let's say our prayers on this day giving thanks for the lovely story of ruth and naomi and ruth and boaz which we shall complete tomorrow but for today we'll say our prayers for the anglican communion and on this uh 14th of the month we're praying for the diocese of jerusalem the episcopal church in jerusalem and the middle east and remember that that encompasses in anglican ministry exactly where we've been reading a story about this morning and we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambeth and continue to pray for the parishes around reculva on the 21st of january i see we come to recover itself and we've some historic things to say about recover but we're talking this morning of uh the clergy with permission to officiate that's retired clergy and people who have time to spare who are ordained who have a permission to go and help out in the parishes there and we give thanks for their ministry it's a long list of people and at the same time we are thinking of those whom we would pray for in our own faith communities so let's say the prayer for this day and then say the our father together eternal father who at the baptism of jesus revealed him to be your son anointing him with the holy spirit grant to us who are born again by water and the spirit that we may be faithful to our calling as your children through jesus christ our lord who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever our men so each in our own language 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 see a moment for your own reflection on this morning as the sun rises higher the village church is a few hundred yards from dr schweitzer's front door in it is one of the many organs in europe that he has designed or rebuilt or rescued from destruction as an organist craftsman and scholar schweitzer might easily have devoted his whole life to music he chose the jungle hospital instead but when he has time in greensboro it is his greatest joy to come to this place and play his beloved instrument [Music] to schweitzer this is an ideal example of the village organ an instrument perfectly proportioned to the size of the church he plays box prelude in d major [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] like music a man's life means more than the sum of its parts it is a composition with many themes and one transcendent meaning this is a fact of all life and the life of albert schweitzer is not an exception but an example 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 are men so enjoy this day wherever you are in the world and may it be a good one for you in 1934 i guess it was the spring of 34 following an american tour miss slanginska was summoned to rachmaninoff's apartment in paris and the beginning of a unique experience ruth wasn't that a rather rare honor for a musician of nine years of age indeed it was you see just that season i had substituted for mr rahman enough at a recital which he was supposed to have played at philharmonic auditorium in los angeles and on a very short notice i played his program and when i went back home to paris he telephoned my father and asked him to bring me to play for him so that he could hear what a a little girl sounded like who could substitute for him in public well i was rather overwhelmed because i had seen this great master on stage and never expected to have the honor of meeting him much less playing for him he stayed at the villa majestique hotel in paris and my father carefully drilled some compositions into me so that i could play for him and he brought me there and tall lanky mr rachmaninov in his shirt sleeves opened the door and looked way down at me and he said you mean that plays the piano he must have been thinking of you subbing for him well that was the beginning of two years of meetings uh with uh mr rachmaninoff was he fond of instruction oh no he always hated to teach he uh said how much he despised working with untalented students and that never never would he be persuaded to teach again he wasn't teaching me he was inviting me to tea and he taught me how to drink tea that's for sure and russian cookies but each time he would give me compositions to take home and learn and bring for him which he would correct very carefully so even if he wasn't admitting it he wasn't he was teaching you you studied with some of the great masters all over europe what would you say was the particular contribution to you from rachmaninoff a way of thinking about music which is peculiar to the composer himself a composer writes what he is what he is molded by his time and by the epoch in which he lives he told me things of himself which i was to put into the music he would explain in word pictures what different compositions meant to him he persuaded me to read books about other composers so that i would know in turn what to put into their music he taught me how to substantiate these ideas by a solid thorough technical uh background he told me i had fingers like overcooked spaghetti and made me work with a metronome now he was characterized with fire and strength do you feel you got this from him i remember playing for him once and he said you played that like a little girl i said well i am a little girl he said nut when you sit in front of that piano you are playing my music you are playing what i wrote down and you must play the way it is written ruth why have you selected all preludes for this camera three rakhmaninov program mr rathman enough was very proud of these preludes all written in the major and minor keys so that there are uh 24 altogether he was very proud of these because he said it was more difficult to write a miniature than to write a large composition also i have selected for you this a kind of a bouquet so that i have many different moods many different rachmaninov we're we're looking forward to them right now now miss ruff slingenska in perhaps 101st concert in 1963 playing rachmaninoff preludes for camera 3. 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