good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of monday the 13th of september it's a monday morning so we've come into the meadow which is still full of the golden niger flowers but they're lovely blue flowers and other flowers peeping through despite the dominance of the gold niger but i have actually placed myself in shall we say incarceration with the hens because our lesson later on will be joseph in prison and so there's a sense here of being behind the bars this was where we left him on friday morning as we open the iron gate to enter the gold fields so in a moment i'm going to give the prisoners their breakfast and we'll continue with our thinking and reflections as we read the psalm and the lesson from inside this morning before stepping out into the the golden field of the niger i just wanted to mention one or two days the fires in southwestern spain are increasing and the the amount of people trying now forces brought in to try to control them that can be an image as those forces are trying desperately to stop those fires both for homes and people but also the destruction of so much beautiful woodland and forest and uh at the same time we have the news and this is just a news flash that in 2020 there were a record number of people intentionally killed who were working to save areas of conservation and foresting most of them in latin america but in other areas of the world too saving nature and these things are really important to us as restrictions allow things to grow and develop again and then we think of the people of shanghai some of you may be watching from shanghai in china as typhoon shantu approaches the coast there all these situations of danger and where people have to put their own lives at risk to help others and also a nice piece of news that talon the capital of estonia has been named the european green capital and that is a city i don't know but it's one of fletcher's favorite cities and he's always saying you must see tallinn and there are wonderful photographs of it this morning because of that award that it's been given so let's uh first of all i think give some relief to the prisoners here we'll give some more food around for here we are hens come on let's all right come and come and have your breakfast there we are all around [Music] bit more satisfactory contented noises of silence as the hens eat their breakfast here in the hen house and we can begin our morning prayers together bring your own intentions on this monday morning and anything that is on your mind and in your imagination that you would want to pray for as we pray together across the world 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 psalm on this 13th morning of the month is the long psalm 68 so we'll read some verses from that let god arise and let his enemies be scattered let those that hate him flee before him as the smoke vanishes so may they vanish away as wax melts at the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of god but let the righteous be glad and rejoice before god let them make merry with gladness sing to god sing praises to his name exalt him who rides on the clouds the lord is his name rejoice before him father of the fatherless defender of widows god in his holy habitation god gives the solitary a home and brings forth prisoners to songs of welcome but the rebellious inhabit a burning desert oh god when you went forth before your people when you marched through the wilderness the earth shook and the heavens dropped down rain at the presence of god the lord of sinai at the presence of god the god of israel you sent down a gracious rain oh god you refreshed your inheritance when it was weary your people came to dwell there in your goodness oh god you provide for the poor blessed be the lord who bears our burdens day by day for god is our salvation god is for us the god of salvation god is the lord who can deliver from death sing to god you kingdoms of the earth make music in praise of the lord he rides on the ancient heaven of heavens and sends forth his voice some mighty voice ascribe power to god whose splendor is over israel whose power is above the clouds how terrible is god in his holy sanctuary the god of israel who gives power and strength to his people blessed be god so we come back after the weekend with special lessons we come back to the story of joseph and we left him after the lies told about him by potiphar's wife lies believed by his master potiphar who has delivered him to prison chapter 39 22 and then we'll read chapter 40. and the keeper of the prison put joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison whatever was done there joseph was the one who did it the keeper of the prisoner of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in joseph's charge because the lord was with him and whatever he did the lord made it succeed now sometime after this the cupbearer of the king of egypt and the king's baker committed an offense against their lord the king of egypt and pharaoh was angry with his two officers the chief cupbearer and the chief baker and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard in the prison where joseph was confined the captain of the guard appointed joseph to be with them and he attended them they continued for some time in custody and one night both dreamed the cupbearer and the baker of the king of egypt who were confined in the prison each his own dream and each dream with its own interpretation when joseph came to them in the morning he saw that they were troubled so he asked pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house why are your faces downcast today and they said to him we have had dreams and there is no one to interpret them and joseph said to them do not interpretations belong to god please tell your dreams to me so the chief cupbearer told his dream to joseph and said to him in my dream there was a vine before me and on the vine there were three branches as soon as it budded its blossoms shot forth and the clusters ripened into grapes pharaoh's cup was in my hand and i took the grapes and pressed them into pharaoh's cup and place the cup in pharaoh's hand then joseph said to him this is the interpretation of the dream the three branches are three days in three days pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office and you shall place pharaoh's cup in his hand as formerly when you were his cupbearer only remember me when it is well with you and please do me the kindness to mention me to pharaoh and so get me out of this house for i was indeed stolen out of the land of the hebrews and here also i have done nothing that i should be put into this pit now when the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable he said to joseph i also had a dream and in the uppermost basket i had three cake baskets on my head and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for pharaoh but the birds came and et it out at the basket on my head joseph answered and said this is the dream's interpretation the three baskets are three days in three days pharaoh will lift up your head from you and hang you on a tree and the birds will eat your flesh and on the third day which was pharaoh's birthday he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cup bearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants and he restored the chief cup bearer to his position and he placed the cup in pharaoh's hand but he hanged the chief baker as joseph had interpreted to them yet the chief cup bearer did not remember joseph but forgot him i think we're going to go outside for the next bit of our reflection but i think before i go we'll just give some more food to the representatives of the prisoners here in the jail with joseph here our hens and there's something to be going on with we'll come outside and open the prison door [Music] come and talk to you from the meadow itself but still the hens are behind me and we shall hear their contented noises i wanted to talk about this lesson because it's a well-known story and we're right in the heart of it in so many ways joseph is in a place of deep darkness in his soul and notice how he says can you help me to get out of this pit which i haven't deserved and he mentions once again the fact that he is from the land of the hebrews and was sold unjustly to be a slave in egypt but then even in egypt lies were told about him he doesn't go into the story he just says i'm i'm here unjustly but even in that circumstance joseph in his relationships with others has caught the attention first of all of the keeper of the prison and then the captain of the guard and he's given responsibility and is blessed by god he makes the most of encouraging the others while he's there yet still in his heart there is deep sadness for he's lost his father for his miles and miles from him and doesn't know i that the the brothers have taken his many colored coats and covered it in blood and shown it to his father so his father thinks he's dead and stands his younger brother benjamin those two the sons of jacob's beloved rachel so there's separation from his own people he's in egypt's foreign land and has gone down into egypt and there in egypt he's found kindness but also jealousy the brothers had been jealous of him now potiphar's wife has first of all found him physically attractive and then he behaves with loyalty to his god and loyalty to his master and is repaid by her lies to potiphar and here he is in prison but even in prison as his character makes itself known he is favored by those there and clearly has good relations all around well here are two officers of pharaohs who've been put in prison with him and the captain of the guard has said look after these which joseph is doing but the one gift that his brothers had nicknamed him for here comes this dreamer the one gift has not been mentioned since that time of the two visions of the wheat sheaves and the sun and moon and and the stars and now here we are again with that particular gift it's interesting how in the um scriptures dreams play such an important part it's to say that there is a life within us which springs out when the body is resting but the mind and the spirit are still moving and we wake in the morning and dreams tend to go almost at once but the detail of the dreams that now begin to appear in this book of genesis is is such that that the dream was so powerful it's remembered think how in matthew's gospel here's a kind of typology which means a a prelude and a precursor to what might happen later think how early in matthew's gospel another joseph dreams dream where the angel of the lord the voice of god speaks to him and said don't be afraid to take mary as your wife for that which is conceived of her is of the holy spirit and you will you will name the child and you will name him jesus uh emmanuel the the the name which means god with us so all of that and then later the dreams reappear to warn joseph to take the child and his mother and flee down into egypt and another um premonition almost in the old covenant of what the new covenant in its beginnings will be showing and then from egypt which became a place of safety but in exile in a foreign land and also a place when they came fearing that violence was following them mary and joseph returned to galilee remember also of course that the the magi the wise men when they were coming warned in a dream not to go back to herod so they went home by another way we remember that the way is what followers of the way is what christians were first called before they were ever called christians all those things but then there are instances even in the passion narrative in matthew's gospel where pilate's wife claudia procula says to her husband i've suffered many things in a dream this night have nothing to do with that just man and that is actually shown in the gospel narrative in matthew dreams are sometimes signs in both old covenant and new covenant scriptures and the interpretation of dreams notice how joseph says to the chief cup bearer and the chief baker the interpretation of dreams are in the hands of god tell me your dreams and there's a sense that joseph knows that this gift that he has of interpretation is something which is god-given and the interpretation of what those prophetic dreams mean can only come from god himself and then the dreams are told and for one it's a dream of restoration and for the other it's a dream of desolation but joseph doesn't temper the the interpretation he is faithful to the interpretation which god gives him and tells the chief cup bearer the good news and the chief baker the really bad news and when he tells the cup bearer the good news he realizes the cup bearer will in three days time be handing the cup to pharaoh and he says remember me kindly when you're restored to your position and of course once the prison is behind him and the chief cupbearer wants to shake off all memory of that he forgets joseph as well it's wonderful how these memories are stored chapter by chapter in this fascinating and colorful story as it goes through well there are some dates today that i would want to think of as we sit amongst the golden flowers of the niger and one of them is in our calendar st john chrysostom who was the bishop of constantinople and died in the year 407 he died actually on september the 14th which is tomorrow but tomorrow is holy cross day and so the church has always kept his festival on september the 13th today and chrysostom means golden tongue it was a nickname given to him just as jesus gave his disciples nickname and the the his his uh tongue was so good i've heard i've heard him called silver tongued as well but the name is golden tongue so let all these flowers remind you that john chrysostom had the tongue of a teacher and a tongue which could tell the gospel the good news in a way and also sometimes home truths to other bishops in a very powerful way indeed but there's a a way that we remember him when we come to our prayers i will come back to him but for the moment let's give thanks for the life of that uh bishop of constantinople who died in 407. on september the 14th and whom we remember today the one who was golden tongued we also remember today 13th of september 1916 the mostly children's novelist though he wrote other books role dow was born and he was born in flanders near cardiff and then through a career which saw him as a fighter pilot in the second world war he he learned that he was an immensely good and imaginative storyteller and also a wonderful thinker of titles for his stories if i read some of the titles of his stories for children and they became so famous both in reading the books and also in films made of some of them james and the giant peach charlie and the chocolate factory fantastic mr fox danny champion of the world george's marvellous medicine the bfg the big friendly giant the witches matilda he was a storyteller for children road dahl and could think and dream imaginatively and capture characters in different situations and concentrate on the one usually that the adults in the story were discounting it's that special gift of a storyteller he was also wonderful at making up words of his own just to express how delicious food was tasting or how a situation was feeling to someone else and the funny thing is that when you're reading his made-up words you're not thinking that's not a word that exists for he had a capacity of making a word which was so wonderfully expressive that you know exactly what he was meaning in the context of the story so as we think of dreams we also think of our capacity to imagine which the mind goes on with with the spirit while we're sleeping and resting our physical natures for the work of a new day as the gift of a new day is given to us i wanted also to think of someone that we mentioned on the day we were thinking of the reign of queen elizabeth the first and the first elizabethan age with all its gifted peoples artists poets soldiers sailors all of that at that time we did that quite recently but we mentioned in passing that the one person and elizabeth was an imaginative person but a very clever person and never ceased to be a monarch the one person whose advice she would always take however her feelings might be ranging towards someone who was more attractive more handsome more gifted more dashing all of those things was robert cecil and before that william cecil lord burley william cecil the father of robert cecil robert cecil saw her through the end of her reign and into the reign of james the first but william cecil from 1558 when she came to the throne till 1598 held the highest offices no prime minister at that time but he was the lord high treasurer for years towards the end of her reign and if she wanted advice she went he wasn't a very colorful person but he was sound in the advice he gave and always there and trusted and we're going to find as the story goes on that that capacity is one that joseph has it's why eventually he will attain the highest office in the land of egypt simply because his advice his insight and the balance of the way in which he did things for present and for future could be trusted by the one who had the power to trust and the power at that time whether it be queen elizabeth the first with william and then robert cecil or the pharaoh with joseph the power to effect what that advice is asking for in the land itself for the welfare of the people in the present and in the years beyond and then lastly i wanted to mention that on this day in 1819 clara schumann was born now clara schumann was an infant prodigy in terms of music she was a brilliant positively brilliant pianist and her father who was a pianist too rather like mozart's father ensured that she was given the capacity to give recitals and in the when she was 18 she went to vienna and it gave a series of recitals and as she played a a critic at the time in the viennese newspaper said her interpretation of works under her fingers on the keys was epoc making and then he wrote in her creative hands the most ordinary passage the most routine motive acquires a significant meaning a color which only those with the most consummate artistry can give the lovely thing is that at that age she probably didn't know it she was actually expressing all that was inside her imaginatively with the notes given in the composition of others but she started to write herself and she also fell in love with robert schumann a little older than than her but in fact robert schumann fell in love with her and a passionate love match for the whole of their married life together they wanted to get married her father forbade it they went to law and in the end the judge allowed it and on the eve of her 21st birthday she and robert schumann were married and then formed a musical and loving partnership but they also wrote a joint diary not only about their music and what was going on but everything around them and that diary is a precious reminder of the way in which written things can be handed on in all sorts of ways but at the same time clara began to compose for many years after uh her death her music has been forgotten robert schumann's music is played often but now since the 1970s clara's music has been rediscovered also well robert was a prolific composer but in the year 1854 he had the most appalling mental breakdown and was put in an institution and he lived there for two years before his death and for those two years clara was forbidden access to him right at the end when he was very near to death clara was allowed to see him and it was thought that he recognized her but until that moment of his severe mental breakdown it had been a passionate love match and it made her creative not only on the piano but also in making words of her own from the time of her husband's mental breakdown she never composed again her own work she did transcriptions of others works and she kept playing and playing and playing and became the best friend of the young brahms gave him encouragement and the best friend of probably the most famous violinist of the second half of the nineteenth century joseph joerkim for whom uh violin concertios were written and she first him heard mendelssohn's violin concerto played by yoke and the young joe kim and later on brahms would write a violin concerto for him but she and joe kim would do recitals together with her exquisite accompaniment accompanying his wonderful violin playing she never made another love match though her close friendship with brahms and even with joachim was in the minds of society it always is isn't it with companionships given uh the worst kind of connotations but at the same time the diaries continued and brahms himself and joachim knew that they had their in clara schumann a wonderful encourager of their own gifts of composition and gifts of performance so we give great thanks for clara schumann and remember that she worked in desperate sadness she and robert had eight children and she was left to look after some very needy in their life and yet she never gave up and lived on to the year 1896 still performing and lovely photographs of her exist some of them with those with whom she was performing so it's a day when in this golden field and we're thinking of john chrysostom we think of the way in which people can use the golden quality of imagination and use that for their own creativity in so many different ways in the ways that we have spoken of in wise counsel with the cecil's in imaginative storytelling with raul dahl and not only composition but creative performance so that others can have that imaginative creativity awakened let's say our prayers on this particular day it's the uh 13th of september and we're praying for the parishes of the dean of the deanery across the wheeled of kent we'll deal with the parishes themselves day by day as we go forward but today we pray for rodney dreyer the area dean now and the life of all those parishes and within the anglican communion we pray for justin archbishop of canterbury and the convocation of episcopal churches in europe which forms the episcopal church in the united states second province pray for the life of all of those pray for bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lambus and at the same time i'm going to use a prayer not from our daily prayer but from the prayer book here's a really ancient prayer book from my shelves it's printed in 1842 but it is actually got a particular prayer in which all the books of common prayer do and it's a prayer that so many of you will know almost by heart because when we go to services so often at the at the end of the prayers people will say we say the prayer of saint chrysostom that's how it's labeled here at the end of evening prayer at the end of morning prayer a prayer of saint chrysostom the golden tongued and sometimes clergy say to the people let's say it together here's the prayer and we use it today as we give thanks for john chrysostom almighty god who has given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto thee and us promise that when two or three are gathered together in thy name thou wilt grant their requests fulfill now o lord the desires and petitions of thy servants and as may be most expedient for them granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth and in the world to come life everlasting amen a prayer from saint chrysostom meaning golden tongues in this golden meadow this morning let's say the prayer our lord himself taught us in whichever language you like to use our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen moment of silence now for our own prayers on this morning of the golden tongue chrysostom so oh you'll notice from the camera angle because fletcher is standing in the gate under the wisteria facing the sun but so too are all the niger flowers every little flower of gold is turned towards the massive gold disc in the sky which gives them life and also gives them great brightness on a morning like this there's a thin cloud but not enough to cover the sun it'll break through it because it's only a patch of thin cloud but notice how they dance with the wind and face the sun just as sunflowers do but these are much smaller and they're a wonderful ground for our honeybees whom you may have seen just going to collect what they need before flying back to the hives in the orchard here but it's a lovely thing for me because i'm facing all these little gold flowers as they look at the sun and hold their heads to heaven on this golden morning the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and if 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 oh [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] you