good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the 15th of october we've come back into the greenhouse so welcome wherever you are throughout the world as we come to say our morning prayers we were here quite recently seeing uh quite a a collection of family within the greenhouse and particularly lizzie behind me our splendid turkey with her turkey chicks who are now growing quite strong uh and well tiger's here of course uh and the tortoises are here and three pheasants are here also growing up but we have some newcomers as well that's why we've come back our beautiful grey hen has been sitting on eggs and now they're all beginning to hatch in fact each one of them has hatched and she's proving to be a lovely mother with very beautiful chicks indeed and she's sitting here on the ground so we thought that you could come in here and see these as we talk about moses is trouble with the people and the various tribes and different things he's having to deal with and the pharaoh and the egyptian court and the egyptian magicians today all of those things and i'll just give a few little things for the hen too pekon said you can see her beautiful chicks some of them are gray and two of them three of them are black and one of them is a really pretty patterned brown color and they've all come from this lovely grey hen and here's lizzy perhaps i better give some here as well she's getting rather jealous because her chicks there we are and the chicks here are the turkey chicks as well so let's say our our morning prayers surrounded by the life of this greenhouse which is full of different kinds of creatures diversity is the name of the game this morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the true the only light banish all darkness from our hearts and minds blessed are you sovereign god creator of all to you be glory and praise forever you founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands in the fullness of time you made us in your image and in these last days you have spoken to us in your son jesus christ the word made flesh as we rejoice in the gift of your presence among us let the light of your love always shine in our hearts your spirit ever renew our lives and your praises ever be on our lips blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind as we rejoice in the gift of this new day say may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm this morning on this 15th morning of the month is psalm 77 it might be a cry of moses that the psalmist is repeating um although moses and aaron are actually mentioned in this psalm so it's much later historically it is sort of cry that moses might be giving to god at this particular time as we saw yesterday i cry aloud to god i cry aloud to god and he will hear me in the day of my trouble i have sought the lord by night my hand is stretched out and does not tire my soul refuses comfort i think upon god and i groan i ponder and my spirit faints you will not let my eyelids close i am so troubled that i cannot speak i consider the days of old i remember the years long past i commune with my heart in the night my spirit searches for understanding will the lord cast us off forever will he no more show us his favor has his loving mercy clean gone forever has his promise come to an end forevermore has god forgotten to be gracious has he shut up his compassion in displeasure and i said my grief is this that the right hand of the most high has lost its strength i will remember the works of the lord and call to mind your wonders of old time i will meditate on all your works and ponder your mighty deeds your way o god is holy who is so great a god is our god you are the god who works wonders and declares your power among the peoples with a mighty arm and you redeemed your people the children of jacob and joseph the waters saw you oh god the waters saw you and were afraid the depths also were troubled the clouds poured out water the skies thundered your arrows flashed on every side the voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind your lightnings lit up the ground the earth trembled and shook your way was in the sea and your paths in the great waters but your footsteps were not known you led your people like sheep by the hand of moses and aaron let's give some more food here i think lizzy is thinking that she's been shortchanged here we are lizzy that's the way there we go here we are and there we are mummy hen little pretty chicks there we go so let's say uh i'll read our lesson for this morning from the book of the exodus and i'm starting in chapter six and verses one to nine but then because there's an amount of repetition here i shall go to chapter seven and read verses eight to thirteen so here is chapter six verses one to nine following on from yesterday but the lord said to moses now you shall see what i will do to pharaoh for with a strong hand he will send them out and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land [Music] god spoke to moses and said to him i am the lord i appeared to abraham to isaac and to jacob as god almighty but by my name the lord i did not make myself known to them i also established my covenant with them to give them the land of canaan the land in which they lived as sojourners moreover i have heard the groaning of the people of israel whom the egyptians hold as slaves and i have remembered my covenant say therefore to the people of israel i am the lord and i will bring you out from under the burdens of the egyptians and i will deliver you from slavery to them and i will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment i will take you to be my people and i will be your god and you shall know that i am the lord your god who has brought you out from under the burdens of the egyptians i will bring you into the land that i swore to give to abraham to isaac and to jacob i will give it to you for a possession i am the lord moses spoke thus to the people of israel but they did not listen to moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery then the lord said to moses and aaron when pharaoh says to you prove yourselves by working a miracle then you shall say to aaron take your staff and cast it down before pharaoh that it may become a serpent so moses and aaron went to pharaoh and did just what the lord commanded aaron cast down his staff before pharaoh and his servants and it became a serpent but pharaoh summoned his wise men and sorcerers and they the magicians of egypt also did the same by their secret arts for each man cast down his staff and they became serpents but aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs nevertheless pharaoh's heart was still hardened and he would not listen to them as the lord had said this is going to be more troublesome to moses and to aaron than they imagined for god's time is not always our time and at the moment the pharaoh with all his power and the egyptians with all their arts are able to combat everything that moses and aaron are doing at present in the court but for the moment the plagues have not yet begun and it takes us back almost to the waiting time with joseph or even the waiting time with jacob much patience over many years is always shown by people in these stories whether it be abraham waiting for the birth of a son isaac waiting for god's promises to be accomplished even though deep within himself he knows that those promises are there or whether it be isaac or jacob jacob waiting all those years for that fulfillment which will cause him to know that god's promises are opening out in a way that he had always been told they would by the living god as we say in the present tense but time in god's hands is very often from that different from time in our in patient hands as humankind and here we have the same thing joseph going down into egypt and waiting the years in potiphar's service the years in prison and then the dreams of the pharaoh the release and how all that opened up we've traced that in the past few weeks but now moses problem is much much greater for all those hundreds of years later he has a whole nation of many diverse tribes they often say um the the phrase it's like herding cats well that means cats are impossible to hurt they have their own mind they go their own way chicks are pretty difficult as well as you see with the mother hen and they will take their own way and go off and explore and both these sets are just like that exploring all over the greenhouse curious but at the same time moses people are fractious because they don't believe him because they're having to wait and even moses himself from the conversations he is having with god has doubts about the outcome based on doubts about himself how can i accomplish this everything is set deep inside him the same kind of doubts that one finds with any vocation resting on the frailty of humankind but also inspired and sometimes burning bright sometimes very low almost imperceptible within that human being and here we are with moses now the doubts have been even more underlined by pharaoh's magicians and yet it's moses task to keep the people somehow safe and bring them out of their exile to safety in the promised land we've been talking uh over the last day or two about the huguenots who came here to find safety from those who were persecuting them and killing them and how they found a measure of safety here the the witness to the huguenots is given by the chapel in which they worship here in canterbury in the crypt those of you who've been there will also say perhaps have read on the door the kind of testimony that samuel smiles in the mid 19th century said that this chapel gave to those of the way in which this nation had a history of receiving those who were being tyrannized by foreign governments and giving them safe hospitality and at the same time in rochester place that the huguenots went to when they fled here and began to help the economy of the city of rochester as well and in rochester you find a small huguenot museum at the moment because of resources they're in danger of closing and so we are attempting to help with that because the testimony of huguenot congregations proves to be a testimony of any who find themselves in exile and really become witnesses to hospitality given by others mostly to their own benefit because of what the huguenots put into the communities in which they they became of which they became part we remember one very strong huguenot community in charleston in south carolina and there there's a lovely huguenot church with all the insignia of the huguenots which we know well from here and they when i've said this before but when the grace church cathedral was being converted to become the cathedral church the huguenots gave hospitality to the congregation in their own place just as the synagogue did so that they could worship in their building instead all of that we remember in terms of trying to keep people safe and if they have to travel to be safe leading them safely on that travel conveying them there and this is what moses and aaron face as they go forward this is what moses is having doubts about you see how our lovely grey hen has and this is an image that jesus uses and lizzie too will do exactly the same with her much bigger wings she's just gone down onto the floor and gathered the tiny chicks under the warmth of her feathers remember jesus saying when he confronts the violence of the city of jerusalem oh jerusalem jerusalem how often have i longed to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her feathers well no better illustration of protection and warmth uh for you today than seeing the grey hen after the chicks have had their little picnic here under her wings they're all gathered quite safely probably because they're quite curious one or two will pop out again at some stage soon but back here these are rather older and lizzy's having more of a task of keeping them all safe nevertheless within the greenhouse they are all completely safe from outside dangers this is a day date-wise when on the 15th of october 1881 archbishop william temple was born william temple born on that day and became the archbishop of canterbury he was a person with an enormous social conscience for the care of others well known for that and well known for his ability to speak and plead the cause of others he'd been bishop of manchester from 1921 to 29 and in those eight years he'd seen much poverty and and really distressed through lack of resources and it formed his desire to speak for those who needed a champion he went on in 1929 to be the archbishop of york and was archbishop of york right up to 1942 as the second world war began and then in 1942 the archbishop of canterbury the then archbishop cosmo gordon lang retired and at that time uh winston churchill was the prime minister it was his task to choose a new pri a new archbishop of canterbury and recommend that name to king george vi as the person who would be the archbishop of canterbury and uh there was quite a lot of opposition to temple because of his radical thinking opposition from churchill's own conservative party the country was actually under a war coalition at that time of all parties but churchill was of the conservative party and his own members were saying to him don't choose temple choose someone more of our way of thinking and churchill looking round at all the bishops whom he could choose at that time in 1942 chose temple and said temple was the only half crown article in the sixth bani bazaar the quality of temple as an archbishop was absolutely evident to churchill and the nation responded and templed during the years of his archbishopric they were two short years only but during the years of his archbishop rick travelled constantly spoke everywhere sometimes two or three times a day and he was speaking of the society that he wanted to see flourishing a fair society with resources for all beginning to grow out of this terrible conflict and he had a vision for the future as so many with a prophetic insight and a care a social conscience for their people have a vision for the future and as he spoke so he would describe that vision he was enthroned as archbishop of canterbury here in 1942 on the 23rd of april therefore he'd been here not two months when the city of canterbury was bombed in a terrible baiduka raid and bombs rained down over the city in an attempt to destroy the cathedral as a morale defeating exercise destroying one of the places in england which gave the nation morale as it happened on that night we've discussed this before how this happened the cathedral was not destroyed and those on the roof threw off the many incendiary bombs fell on it but no high explosive bomb struck the cathedral itself they exploded all round destroying cannons houses and other houses in the precincts but the wind was towards the the north and blowing southerly and it was that area of the city that caught fire and from a high up under a pool of smoke you couldn't judge what you were bombing they bombed where the fire was and that increased the blaze in canterbury but it's said that in the middle of the bombing and middle of the night as the fires were blazing all over the precincts and we've said this before as the clock kept striking its quarters in the gregorian chant as though praying for the citizens and confirming that it was still there in the middle of the night the archbishop william temple in dressing gown in a night shirt stepped out of the old palace and found that the dean the formidable hewlett johnson the red dean um uh standing there in his his full frock coat and gators fully dressed out there fearlessly helping people to safety helping people into the crypt where everything was sandbagged and and was a place of as safe as it could be in that that place and uh the archbishop responded he'd as i said he'd only been archbishop less than two months uh responded and said to to hewlett johnson well at least you're properly dressed mr dean looking at his own night shirt just a moment of humor in the middle of all that terror but soon after he gathered a few days later on this on the sunday he he gathered the citizens together in a full cathedral with the ruins of the city and the precincts all around him and from the pulpit continue to preach a message of a vision of the future i still have in in his inky writing the prayers that he used on that day from the pulpit on a pieces of almost exercise book about six pieces of exercise book and one feels what on earth were people feeling at that time of with all these ruins how could they find protection and there was their archbishop in the middle talking about a vision of the future so he went on he was not a well man and in 1944 just two years after he was made archbishop of canterbury he himself uh fell very ill and was taken from the old palace here to a nursing home at westgate on sea and there he died of a heart attack huge tragedy for the nation at that time because he had been seen as the spiritual leader that would take them forward and once again their prayers must have been filled with the word as the psalmist so often is why why with a great question mark after it but steadfastness and courage and faith were needed to go on to build that society which would be a society of protection and care leaning on texts like our lord's text how often have i wanted to gather you under my wings and like a hen gathering her chicks but you would not and the willingness to be gathered to the savior at that time must have been something that had many questions attached to it why is all this happening so then and this a a much lighter touch on the 15th of october 1881 same date the novelist and really comic writer p.g woodhouse was born and the novels of woodhouse have cheered people up since he began writing he began writing school stories and they were fairly ordinary school stories at the time there was humor in them but then suddenly he struck in one of his one of his stories uh a story called called mike which was a school story he struck on a character that he had formed and been inspired by the person of rupert doylecart it was richard doylecart the the builder of the savoy hotel the savoy theater and the the person who had the imagination to see that gilbert and sullivan would would be a good going concern for him as well as something that would give the nation enjoyment but this was much later and his son rupert doily cart who apparently was immaculately dressed very suave with his monocle and black silk string and what has thought this was comic and so he invented a character called smith and smith was not happy with just the name smith so he added a silent p in front of it so the name is spelt p-s-m-i-t-h and he would say to people in the novel my name is smith but the p is silent and uh then at that time um that character almost was a new beginning evelyn war said that of looking at at woodhouse's novels later on and said the entry of smith caused him to become a great comic writer but what he had a capacity of doing was of drawing characters in communities so that when you entered one set of his books you felt at home because you knew some of the characters and expected them to arrive there's of course the huge um series of jeeves and worcester books which have been done by so many people and and one things of stephen fry and hugh laurie um or even uh ian carmichael and dennis price acting them in television series but the ones that i've always loved are those set in the shropshire castle of lord emsworth at blanding's castle and the very first book i read again in my old stamping ground when i was growing up from the village library i took it off the shelves and it was simply called leave it to smith with the silent p at the beginning of the name and that beautiful book in terms of of the way in which woodhouse can describe anything and describe someone just absolutely gets it right that beautiful book starts uh with with something outside blanding's castle but when you go to blanding's castle his lordship there is is very much part of of uh the scene and you think ah here we are here's lord emsworth and here's his sister constance and here's his efficient secretary whom lordems was trying to escape the whole time rupert baxter and then the character of smith is introduced just because he feels um the the the need to do something a bit different and lord emsworth's son goes to find someone to help him and smith is introduced into the society of blanding's castle and all kinds of mayhem start to happen i won't go into the story because it's it's something that it is a very easy read but for me it was an introduction to the society and the rural atmosphere of blanding's castle with his lordship hating ever having to go to london loving being amongst these flowers and best of all being with his not in the leave it to smith because uh she's not in that but but uh the being with his his prize pig the empress of blandings and always he's thinking there's a plot to steal the empress so that she won't win first prize in the county show all those things giving people amusement and comfort when they need simply a little bit of morale boosting and woodhouse was really good at that though in the second world war he himself became a victim to his own sense of humor about things because he could make humor about anything but the one thing you couldn't make humor about or say anything good about was the nazi regime in germany and he had been caught in france and was given quite a comfortable time by the germans who had caught him because they knew who he was but they also asked him to make a broadcast and it was not hostile but was quite sympathetic to saying well i'm being treated very well that went down really badly in the nation here and it it scarred him he did begin to to write again he wrote many more stories but he could never settle up here again and uh a little bit as we were saying with sicliff richard that that scarring meant that he felt he had to relocate and have a new beginning because uh woodhouse had actually done this so cliff quite differently unjustifiably but still feeling when someone's really badly hurt then that always remains there and real courage is is uh needed and certainly clifford has shown us that in a very big way indeed so all these times we're looking day by day with um uh the sense of the way in which communities are protected where leaders step forward and make decisions for their benefit and and if people aren't needed to be led to safety leaders can step forward and help them do so poor moses and aaron are going to have a fairly difficult and rough time but we've seen over the last few days how people do have the courage to step forward and and and be there and then give morale back and we give thanks for the songs of cliff richard and the the the the novels of of someone like pg woodhouse where which people read with huge enjoyment in the end uh woodhouse was knighted for all of that late in his life and from then on um he lived up a more comfortable life with with the sense of his books being recognized all of those things we think of on this morning in the greenhouse as we say our prayers together we're still praying uh in our own diocese for the area deanery of dover and the villages around and uh the um deanery is asking for us to pray for the fresh fresh expressions and missional learning communities within its area that's the little villages and communities around dover at the same time we're praying for justin our archbishop and also for rose bishop of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth and today in the anglican communion for the diocese of gloucester and that's in the church of england uh and uh gloucester cathedral a very very beautiful place uh very near to the time when i uh where i grew up and very the the place where i grew up though in fact the southern part of the diocese of the county of gloucestershire is in the diocese of bristol and the the cathedral is in the northern half but we pray for dean stephen there and his wife carol at this time because uh stephen worked with me uh as one of my curious at sherban abbey and so we've been great friends ever since and and keep in touch so uh god bless the diocese of gloucester today in the canterbury province of the church of england let's say then the prayer for this week and um by now i think we know it by heart 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 amen together we say the prayer our savior taught us but in many different languages 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 amen see a moment of silence now for our own prayers so so so so so so so 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 from those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always amen well you've all come out again from your protection and come out for another little snack maybe i can give you a little bit more you've got plenty of time to grow up with these here we are there we go yes two little turkey poults are growing up here very good mothers both of you are very busy you're right yeah very proud of your chicks i'm sure are you yeah uh um so foreign foreign [Music] sorry [Music] [Applause] smoothies [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] she first foreign [Music] please [Music] um [Music] hmm [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] five [Music] oh [Music] trump [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] jesus oh [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Music] three times since christ's rule was established in england the holy ground upon which this cathedral stands has witnessed a decisive climax in the spiritual history of our nation the first time was more than 13 centuries ago in the year of our lord 597 a saintly missionary reached the shores of this island he had come from rome with instructions to convert the pagan kingdom to the church of christ the king of that time ethelbert had a wife birther who was already among the followers of christ and it was she who received augustine and mediated between the missionary and her pagan husband because of his love for his wife ethelbert welcomed augustine to this city of canterbury and the pagan church the ruins of which can still be seen was given to him for his preaching around this primitive church there then arose a great monastery dedicated at first to saint peter and saint paul but afterwards rededicated to its founders and augustine here to this day an air b stands where missionaries are trained to follow the saints calling in lands still pagan in 603 augustine consecrated the church to christ this cathedral in which we still worship when he died some ten years later a great and prosperous community of christians had been established in the city of canterbury and was to flourish undisturbed for 400 years then a century of ravage and destruction such as we have witnessed in our own time visited this island in the year 1011 canterbury was pillaged by the danes each archbishop murdered and its monks butchered or dispersed built up again by good king canute our cathedral was once more to bear the brunt of invasion when william and his normans landed on our shores the church built by saint augustine was raised to the ground the great monastery left in utter ruins when william had established his rule in this kingdom he appointed len frank as his first archbishop a new church and a new monastery arose from the ruins it was 60 years before the work was completed but then once more canterbury possessed a new and magnificent edifice the norman church whose beauty can still be seen in saint anselm's tower in the norman staircase in earnest script and in many other details this was the church in which archbishop thomas beckett was murdered in the year 1170 the spot where beckett fell can still be seen in the martyrdom chapel but of the shrine in which his mattered body was interred nothing remains four years after beckett's death the church in which the deed was committed perished in a disastrous fire a new church substantially the fabric you see around you now was immediately built it took many years to complete it and indeed a mighty church like this is never complete its walls rise and fall contract and expand in unison with the spirit of god within the people the new church that rose around the holy shrine of the martyred archbishop is one of the most magnificent in christendom it lifts itself up said erasmus in such majesty towards heaven that it strikes religion into the beholders from a distance and many were the beholders that approached the new cathedral in its early years beckett's death which symbolized for all the conflict of spiritual and temporal power had endowed this cathedral with a universal significance pilgrims from every christian country paid homage to this martyr's memory kings and emperors rich merchants and humble folk from every land wore the new stone smooth with their very knees many were the gifts which these pilgrims showered on thomas's church and on the great abbey which stood within our close three centuries passed and then this abbey and this church were despoiled by an envious and impeach king henry viii what escaped this royal vandalism in the 16th century fell before the even more efficient fanaticism of the puritans in the 17th century statues and painted windows furniture and goodly hangings coats of arms and memorial brassies whatsoever there was of beauty or decency in the holy place was despoiled but in spite of all this vandalism and destruction one thing more precious remained intact through all these centuries the truth for which beckett died amid the frequent abdications of human dignity the visitations of brutal lust and destructiveness these walls however stripped of adventitious glory bore silent and transcendental witness to the primacy of spiritual values and now in our own time canterbury has once again been visited with fire and destruction vandals have once more invaded not our shores that the skies above us incendiary and explosive bombs have rained down on us but by the mercy of god and the vigilance of those who watch and guard during the dark and dangerous nights our fabric still stands and even if these sacred stones had not been preserved the spirit of saint augustine and saint thomas would still inhabit this holy ground inspiring us to new devotion and new works whatever the enemies of god and christ destroy we shall rebuild again we shall make this our metropolitan church once again the rampart of a missionary seal for apart from the particular evil which menaces us from abroad there are evils near our home which we as christians should acknowledge and strive to remedy it cannot be said that it is our duty to know what the remedy is for its new execution involves many technical matters but there is one general principle we should admit and many immediate objectives we should pursue as a general principle upon which alone the solid foundations of peace can be built we should recognize that the resources of the earth should be used as god's gift to the whole human race and used with due consideration for the needs of the present and future generations beyond this as elements of a christian social order we must demand dignity and decency of housing for every family we should demand equal opportunity of education for every child we should insist that every worker has a voice through his representatives in the conduct of the business or industry which is carried on by means of his labor that every citizen should have sufficient daily leisure and holidays and finally every individual should be assured liberty freedom of worship freedom of speech freedom of assembly and of association these are the requisites of a natural order of a christian social order and in this present moment of supreme crisis from this cradle of the nation's spiritual enlightenment the call goes forth live in mutual love live in peace and happy industry live in the eternal glory of god's grace [Music] oh [Music] uh [Music] is [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] trees [Music] us [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] so so so so so as well my so so so know you foreign not available um [Music] um uh um all right so bye [Music] ah [Music] so uh [Music] [Music] sorry [Music] three [Music] okay foreign [Music] [Music] wow my [Music] [Music] so so so [Music] so okay so so [Music] my [Music] [Music] oh oh so uh so uh you