good morning and welcome to the garden of the deanery at canterbury cathedral on this morning of tuesday the 10th of august no prizes for discussing or guessing which story that we're reading in the book of genesis this morning but we'll talk about the arc a bit later on um but for the moment let me say that no two days could be more different today is the most beautiful summer morning it's dawned in golden glory with the sun rising and a pure blue sky above me as the day begins to gather some freshness it's a cool morning for august but it's a good morning and we are remembering ourselves many many parts of the world which are in severe danger from the climate change as we've heard yesterday from the the code red from the united nations group and at the same time people suffering from the pandemic as well so we think of those areas and particularly in eastern regions of the mediterranean in greece tragic pictures from greece on the front of our newspapers this morning and of turkey and that whole area there and at the same time california and the western part of the united states and canada fighting fires in a way which is quite unknown to them the severity and the continuity of these huge fires which are going on and at the same time floods in north korea and other areas of the world and the pandemic so much danger for humankind at present and we hold all of those situations in our prayers you will have different images in your mind and you'll have different dangers in different parts of the world as we gather together this morning now we're here in a very special place because last night we had a slight crisis and nothing to do with leo who's coming here and waiting for his breakfast really maybe i should give you a little bit of something you are um with jane our turkey uh and the white the white chaky the gentlest of all our turkeys and we came out to shut the shed and jane wasn't inside it was getting dark and as i've said before we search and search but we couldn't find jade and we're always very fearful of a fox strike as they call it but the first sounds that fletcher had very early on this morning from the garden was of jane you can perhaps hear her now and so this morning when she comes on he's saying she's doing the walk of shame having stayed out all night but it could have been a sadness in fact she's she's here and waiting for her friends come on jane come over here can you come hey jane jane come on come on come on here we are good girl come on we're very very very glad to see you come on here we are come on good girl there so we've not lost any of our little ark this morning but let's start our prayers and wherever you are in the world please bring your own prayers and intentions o 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 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 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 are men that's a very turkey noise that pink pink which is uh come on jane here we are you've had a frightening night probably uh we're saying this morning on this this morning of the month the 10th morning of the month psalm 50 which is very apt for a day when we're telling the story of noah in episode two the lord the most mighty god has spoken and called the world from the rising of the sun to its setting out of zion perfect in beauty god shines forth our god comes and will not keep silence consuming fire goes out before him and the mighty tempest stirs about him he calls the heaven above and the earth that he may judge his people gather to me my faithful who have sealed my covenant with sacrifice let the heavens declare his righteousness for god himself his judge hear o my people and i will speak i will testify against you o israel for i am god your god i will not reprove you for your sacrifices for your burnt offerings are always before me i will take no bull out of your house nor he got out of your folds for all the beasts of the forest are mine the cattle upon a thousand hills i know every bird of the mountains and the insect of the field is mine if i were hungry i would not tell you for the whole world is mine and all that fills it do you think i eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats offer to god a sacrifice of thanksgiving and fulfill your vows to god most high call upon me in the day of trouble i will deliver you and you shall honor me but to the wicked says god why do you recite my statutes and take my covenant upon your lips since you refused to be disciplined and have cast my words behind you when you saw a thief you made friends with him and threw in your lot with adulterers you've loosed your lips for evil and harnessed your tongue to deceit you sit and speak evil of your brother you slander your own mother's son things have you done and should i keep silence did you think that i am even such a one as yourself but no i must reprove you and set before your eyes the things that you have done you that forget god consider this well lest i tear you apart and there is none to deliver you whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me and to those who keep my way will i show the salvation of god so let's turn to our reading which is taking up from where we left off yesterday in the pouring rain now under a blue sky we continue that story and i'm starting at chapter six with the last verse that i used yesterday verse 18 sorry and going on then into chapter 7 up to verse 16 of the book of genesis excuse me say verse 18 of chapter 6 god said to noah i will establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark you your sons your wife and your son's wives with you and of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every thought into the ark to keep them alive with you they shall be male and female of the birds according to their kinds and of the animals according to their kinds of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind two of every thought shall come into you to keep them alive also take with you every sort of food that is eaten and store it up it shall serve as food for you and for them noah did this he did all that the lord commanded him then the lord said to noah go into the ark you and all your household for i have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation take with you seven pairs of all clean animals the male and his mate and a pair of animals that are not clean the male and his mate and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also male and female to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth for in seven days i will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights and every living thing that i have made i will blot out from the face of the ground and noah did all that the lord had commanded him noah was 600 years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth and noah and his sons and his wife and his son's wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood of clean animals and of animals that are not clean and of birds and of everything that creeps on the ground two and two male and female went into the ark with noah as god had commanded noah and after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth in the sixth hundredth year of noah's life in the second months on the 17th day of the month on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of the heavens were opened and rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights and on the very same day noah and his sons shem ham and japheth and noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark they and every beast according to its kind and all the livestock according to their kinds and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind and every bird according to its kind every winged creature they went into the ark with noah two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life and those that entered male and female of all flesh went in as god had commanded him and the lord shut him in we'll stop there for this morning one sees what a compelling picture it is and as we said yesterday the ark here representing almost our little planet but in those days those far far far off days beyond time as humans recorded we are seeing a society which had seen itself as in the stories of creation protected from the waters by the creator's hand and how life was threatened but in their thinking there was water all around their little dry space which threatened life and now to wash things clean and begin again as we said yesterday in the story because of the way in which humankind had corrupted the creator's intention the fountains of the deep burst forth from the waters below and the windows of heaven are opened a wonderful metaphorical image the windows of heaven are open and the waters from above pour in so that everything in that space under the dome which god has created begins to fill with death-threatening waters for life which breathes the air which god has given all of these things are amazing stories to tell but at the same time you'll notice that over the years uh different hands have shall we say interpolated bits and pieces and the strength of the old story is the one that we remember if i say to anyone uh who knows the story so how many animals went into the ark then it'll be two by two and uh so many songs about two by two by two by two but notice that later on a a liturgical shall we say a priestly hand which we've seen ordering this all the way through has begun to separations and because at the end of the whole story sacrifices will be needed then also animals and birds of the uh are are seen to be and remember saint peter's dream in the acts of the apostles clean and unclean and that kind of separation comes in at this point with the interpolations so having said two of every kind a male and a female suddenly there's that passage which says but that's the unclean beast the clean ones got seven pairs and that was then introduced in that way i i think that that really the story tells itself and we remember very much how the story was originally told because it was a storyteller's art and the storytellers art says that noah is chosen because of his obedience whatever the lord the creator commanded that never did and noah and his family are placed in the protective ark well it's a nice dry morning so i've brought down our own nails arc if you're clever you will see that it's an advent calendar and it's a favorite object in the house it spins so that you get both sides and it's got because it's an advent calendar 24 doors and it gives first of all the sense of the beauty of creation and elements of the story which will come tomorrow and the day after but for the moment uh let's look at the ark itself a protection a seed pod for life beyond and on the top here holding a little dove in his hand with an an olive twig in his beak is noah but just to make certain um of the two by two and this dove as you know is going to fly away and not return in the story at the end there are also two dabs up here which fulfill the pair that will become the seed of life in the story and here are the doors so uh it's always enjoyable because in putting the animals back at the end of advent we always put them in a jumble and have no idea who's where and so one then has to wait and on day one we have it's the lion let me get him out if i can here he is we'll stand him down here it's clearly the male lion and he's come out first and then on day two we have ah the lamb or the sheep and we can put them together and on day three what do we have ah we have a giraffe and on day four good ahen here we are very much a female mother hen a white one but of the shape of the black one that you've got to know whom we call mummy mummy hen and is our best sitter on eggs and hat ah now day five gets the cat and day six what do we get ah even better a zebra and so it goes on we have to shut these for the moment so that we can go below i'm only going to do the front but um i can open all the doors at the back so we're day seven and we've got what a cow this is enormous fun when you have children in the house and uh they're seeing which animal is there all single at the moment ah here is here is day eight and we get ducky and uh the duck comes out and day nine r r r the very first companionship here is the lioness and we can stand them together and then it becomes all great fun because at this point oh no here's another creature completely different the elephant and the next is uno a companionship again here we have and let's put them over here the cockerel who can stand now beside the hen two by two and finally on this side and again um we have the the pig so in doing that opening the first 12 doors we've got this mixture of animals in the story one can go round i'm not going to spend time opening with i'll open the doors to show you what's there there's a monkey in there and a rabbit and then the other cat and a cow and a zebra and a giraffe and so it goes on through i think we've probably seen most of the animals by that stage but as we see that what he's saying to us is how is humankind's care of the planet its creatures and its creation going on how are humankind in their stewardship responding in obedience to the creator's hand in will for that own life is that the the way in which the gifts given to humankind but also the stewardship of the planet and i i don't need to answer that question this morning we're all answering it in our minds in different ways with everything that's being given to us in the pictures of what is happening to our planet on this particular day what i wanted to say was that that that um playwrights and musicians have loved this story because it contains so many different threads and anything is better if it's not complicated so the complicated adding by the well-intentioned priestly hand of seven pairs of clean beasts and two pa and all of that actually stands in the way of telling a story and the telling of the story stays in the memory better always without complication all things are always better without complication if we can make it so it's what they used to call occam's razor go to the simplest in order to find the truth and only add things if it's necessary for a true explanation but the more you add it's like someone when you ask someone a story and you you know they're not telling the story um truthfully because it begins to get so complicated and even their eyes begin to change as they think up various explanations to to to get this well the simplicity of the story is everything and here we are two by two i'll just think of two things today in terms of creativity one is a wonderful play which some of you may have seen i've seen it performed as school plays i've seen it performed on television magnificently it's by the french playwright andre obey it was written in the middle of the 1930s and it's simply called noah and it's been translated into english it was put on in broadway for a bit but it's the most wonderful story about the old noah's relationship with the creator and how intermittently the voice of the creator is heard by him and it's also the story of mrs noah and the sons and their wives and the children tend to think of their father sympathetically but that he's he's really not he's lost the plot in their mind and as it goes through it's a play in five scenes which uh you can you can read the script of i love reading the script of it because it it it tells the story in a particular way and when in the end they're all on the ark at first there's a sort of thankfulness that they're safe and after that the the young ones begin to get rather bored and they get bored with the daily chores of looking after all the animals and all of these things and well when they when the the ark rests and opens again we'll come to that story later on but obey felt andre obey felt that this was ripe for telling in a particularly dramatic way with the imagination of his own we always do that it's part of our human nature to imagine extra bits and think how was noah feeling at that time how were all the family feeling how was it on that pod which was the seed pod of life which would would come and i wanted to mention also we will come to other creative things about tomorrow and the day after but there is a marvelous little children's half an hour of of of singing telling the story um i think it was novellos that commissioned certain children's opera on biblical biblical things and one of them of course became joseph in his amazing technicolor dreamcoat the the andrew lloyd webber and tim rice story which we've heard sung and then made into a a much bigger thing but i'm thinking of one by joseph horowitz who wrote a story called captain noah and his floating zoo and set it to music and it was for children to perform though i first heard it performed as a curate in the parish church in shrewsbury i think not long after my ordination as a deacon in 1972 and the king's singers came to perform and they performed also the next day at the parish eucharist but the saturday night which i think was was uh in the main hall of showsbury school i heard for the first time captain known his floating zoo and it told the story all the way through and there are moments of wonder and moments of great humor when and sort of english humor if you like when the raindrops begin to fall and two or three of the citizens going about to their daily work and the king singers put on bowler hats with umbrellas in a briefcase and uh i think the words went something like it looks like rain now won't that just be jolly it looks like rain you know i said it would it looks like rain i must go and get my brolly a short sharp shower will do the flowers good and they bow and go away from each other at that point it's telling the story in a way i remember those words simply from the thing happening in it's in my head but it's telling the story in a way that makes one think and at the end there is the same wonder at the last chorus when all i've seen it done by so many schools and and children love telling that story and and setting it and being a part of that story so we give thanks for that kind of music i think the jonah man jazz was a another of those little things which was created at that time let's look at some dates because we'll come back to uh noah and the ark tomorrow and also the the very deep themes of our humanity and the sense of the divinity and eternity of the creator of human time and what threatens the planet our our home at this time in 1675 on this day august 10th charles ii king charles ii laid the foundation stone of the royal observatory in greenwich and it was to be an observatory which mapped the stars and the planets and the moon as far as could be done in those days so that navigators could have accurate maps for tables and times and safety and so we give thanks for that royal observatory and all that it it means today and then in 1842 on this day again we're talking about the welfare of those in our planet here in our parliament in 1842 the minds act forbade the using of children and women underground in mines a step towards welfare and safety 1856 william willett a builder was born but he's not known for that he's known because he was the promoter of daylight saving he desperately wanted the clocks to change and save daylight and his great pamphlet the waste of daylight was passed around by his own money and at that time um he then in the middle of the first world war he died of influenza in 1915 so he didn't live to see in 1907 in 1916 on the 17th of may parliament passed an act so that more work could be done in the summer to help the war effort and it was the the first summer time saving in the second world war it was a two-hour saving so that the harvest could go on because the nights are short and the day is long but in 1945 we came back to what is now called british standard time greenwich mean time it was generally called 1895 on this day the first prom concert conducted by henry wood in the queen's hall we're in the middle of the prom concerts at the moment and thank goodness uh live performances can go on and the prom concert gave people a chance to stand and hear a completely different program all through and and now in the royal albert hall they could they can sit and stand but the excitement of the promenadas is is something very very splendid and um we are in the middle of something which started on 30th of july and the sequence of concerts here broadcast every night on bbc and is going on until i think the 11th of september when you have the enormous last night of the proms which will be recorded much of it is also now on television too and then in 1897 we had the founding of the royal automobile club on this day and in 1911 mps here in parliament voted to give themselves a salary for the first time before that like councillors it was an unpaid job but it became more and more demanding and then in 2003 is the last state i wanted to mention the temperature in britain on this day and i remember it exceeded 100 degrees fahrenheit it became 101.3 which is 38.5 degrees now some of you in different parts of the world say well what's that but it was the first time a temperature of that kind was recorded here and the place it was recorded was it brogdale quite near favicham here so only uh a short way away and what we know from brockdale is the the apple orchards there and also um there's a fine butcher there too but uh it's it's somewhere we would motor over to quite quickly from here extraordinary now that those temperatures are are rising all the time but we've been talking about that as we've gone on each morning so let's say our prayers on this particular day and we are praying on this day in the anglican communion for the diocese of dunedin in the anglican church in air tiara new zealand and polynesia it's the most southerly of the diocese in new zealand and we remember all the people there i remember good hospitality when i was working there for a while for the archbishop of new zealand and that went on so um at this time we also pray for our own diocese praying for the archbishop of canterbury justin for rose bishop of dover and also for tim bishop at lambeth and today we're continuing to pray for the blend valley benefits and for those parishes it's borton malab and harriet sham and lenam and alchem near to here beautiful spots to in the in the middle of kent here so let's bring our own prayers wherever we are and use the prayer for today bring your own concerns and prayers wherever you are let your merciful ears oh lord be open to the prayers of your humble servants and that they may obtain their petitions make them to ask such things as shall please you through jesus christ our lord amen so in whatever language you like to say 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 for your own prayers so oh oh 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 upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always amen