good morning and welcome to the dinery Garden on this at Canter Cathedral on this Monday morning the 26th of July it's Monday so we've come into the Garden congregation's Meadow of flowers here which you've watched growing over the last uh few months really from the bare Earth to now and it's an Olympian morning uh the Olympic Games across the world cuz many of you are watching from right across the world the Olympic games are now Gathering momentum but also it's a gray morning here there it's a golden morning for the United Kingdom because we watched just an hour ago uh the 27 year old swimmer diver Tom Daly who's won just about every Championship and World Record but never yet achieved an Olympic gold despite all the disappoint expectation and then the terrible disappointment four years ago of Rio De Janeiro Tom first at the age of 14 was in the Olympic Games in 2008 this is his fourth Olympic and an hour ago with Matty Lee as his uh partner in synchronized diving it was mat's first Olympics and Tom's fourth they won a gold medal and it's a real Triumph and for for Tom a triumph over all the disappointment of Rio De Janeiro and uh now having me the youngest swimmer diver in um age 14 in 2008 he's now the the oldest contestant I think at the age of 27 extraordinary that diving happens so young but there was immense excitement and there is immense excitement and the BBC Studio simply went wild with this as we all feel enormous pleasure and you'll be feeling the same kinds of pleasure across the world for your Olympians for everyone competing is it the absolute pitch of their uh career and their abilities so for everyone there is a Triumph of having achieve the Olympic Games but this one is at the end of quite a long story uh and we are so absolutely delighted for Tom to have picked himself up in uh Rio deiro the 4 years ago and then come back uh with Matty Lee to make that wonderful set of Dives but especially the last one to achieve Olympic gold for synchronized diving well uh perhaps we can be forgiven that little bit of happiness this morning uh because of course the games will go on and uh I shouldn't forget Adam py the other British swimmer who's won a gold medal uh and uh he did that for swimming breaststroke uh so we give thanks for all the success but also we congratulate all those who have even gone to Tokyo to attempt this in the games this is a day when we are thinking of people in all kinds of climate difficulties across the world as we have uh for the past few days and even yesterday in London there were flash floods which actually turned the city into something that looked more like Venice and nothing like the the floods which northern Europe and China have been enduring but also uh the fires which are raging still in the Western United States and Canada and all kinds of other natural happenings which are causing danger to people and the pandemic which is still very much a danger in so many areas of the world all these things we bring to our prayers as a working day of this week sets off the week but here we are in uh what we have created together the meadow Garden of Flowers wild flowers this morning for me there's not only the gold of the flowers sunflowers here still have to bloom but they'll come soon uh but there's also the red white and blue of the United Kingdom's flag in the poppies uh and the corn flowers um and the golden flowers that you're looking at but the white flowers here as well so all these things that we are enjoying this morning under a cloudy sky but no wind at all absolutely still let's start our prayers 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 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 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 so may the light of your presence oh God set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our Psalm on this 26th morning of the month is a section of Psalm 119 and it's the section which begins at verse 105 your word is a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path I have sworn and will fulfill it to keep your righteous judgments I am troubled above measure give me life oh Lord according to your word accept the Free Will offering of my mouth oh Lord and teach me your judgments my soul is ever in my hand yet I do not forget your law the wicked have laid a snare for me but I have not strayed from your Commandments your testimonies have I claimed as my Heritage forever for they are the very Joy of my heart I have applied my heart to fulfill your statutes always even to the end to the accompaniment of the musical hen's egg laying song we turn back to the Matthew section that we were reading on uh Saturday morning yesterday we had special lessons of course for Sunday and St james' day you will remember that we left uh Jesus and the 11 disciples in The Garden of Gethsemane and at the end of that time of prayer watching and praying Jesus has said to them rise let us be going see my betrayer is at hand now I'm at verse 47 and carrying on from there chapter 26 verse 47 of St Matthew's gospel while Jesus was still speaking Judas came one of the twel and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the Elders of the people now the betrayer had given them a sign saying the one I will kiss is the man sees him and he came up to Jesus at once and said greetings Rabbi and he kissed him Jesus said to him friend do what you came to do then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him and behold one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and Drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear Jesus said to him put your sword back into its place for all who take the the sword will perish by the sword do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once send me more than 12 Legions of angels but how then should the scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so that that are Jesus said to the crowds have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me day after day I sat in the temple teaching and you did not seize me but all this has taken place that the scripture of the prophets might be fulfilled then all his disciples left him and fled this section of betrayal and desertion is told in a particularly Matthew way but we've grown used to that as we've gone through evangelist by evangelist this is Matthew telling the story for his own community of Christians and leaving the story for us to hear as he has ordered it and also as in his mind he is thinking of it and there are certain differences of course there would be because because even in memory when we tell stories we tell them from our own perspective and from the way in which we imagine things had been and sometimes when someone who was there tells the same story you think but that's not how I saw it and often you also think of course that was how it was but I had remembered it this way well here is Matthew telling the story The crucial aspect of the story is that the betrayer LED them to Jesus physically identified him with a gesture of friendship with a kiss of greeting and friendship and then Jesus willingly allows himself to be arrested and talks to the crowd of people who have come with them and then the second Salient fact after the Betrayal all his disciples deserted him and fled the loneliness the absolute loneliness of Jesus at this appointed time of his human vocation yet the certainty of that appointed time that chyos as the Greek word for time being used there is the certainty of that is sure in the other fact which underlies all of this very strongly it comes over and over again and Matthew gives it over and over again and that is the sense that in all this prophecy is being fulfilled the writings of the as we call it Old Testament scriptures are being fulfilled and that becomes intensely important to Jesus himself and to those who are writing the story of the Evangel this is God's purpose for our Salvation our healing our forgiveness and our receiving the gift of the spirit all those things but it's happening in the darkness of Gethsemane strangely Matthew gives us a great crowd doesn't identify and the other gospels tend to give you the sense that this is a smaller crowd of designated people Temple Police and officers of the chief priests and also Matthew doesn't give us torches there is Darkness though at that time of Passover there would have been a full moon as well so that in Matthew's gospel the olive trees and the Darkness are lit By Moonlight shall we say but not by torches and the great crowd are carrying swords and [Music] clubs and Jesus faces them with the Simplicity of saying why do you do it like this I've been with you teaching sitting gently in the temple day by day and you did not seize me nois he says sat in the temple we've thought before how Greek philosophers would walk about talking to their schools of thought but the teaching office is in Jewish terms much more a sitting down and a teaching sitting at the feet of gal uh St Paul talks about the scholar who taught him and here day by day I sat in the temple teaching and you had ample opportunity but now all this has taken place and in another gospel it says the hour of darkness and and but here it simply says uh in Jesus's own words all this has taken place that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled that's the underlying strength and there's the the color of saying this could have been different and and uh whether Matthew's words or Jesus's words remembering things of I could have sent for 12 Legions of angels but none of this is necessary for this has to be fulfilled and is being fulfilled willingly by the suffering servant of Isaiah the lamb led to the slaughter and there at this moment standing absolutely alone surrounded by a great crowd of people with weapons in their hands who are about to lead him away perhaps what I would say also is to remind you of something we thought of before and that is the fact that first of all Judas rather than call Jes as Lord which the other disciples have have done kir Lord through the discourses where that Matthew gives Judas simply the word Rabbi har Rabbi the uh greeting hail Rabbi greetings Rabbi and he kisses him a gesture of friendship but Jesus when he himself then uh says to Judas in response to the greeing and our translation says friend do what you came to do that word for friend hatare as he speaks to him in the vocative formar is not the word that he uses generally for friends when he says to his disciples that the fairw discourses and then to to us through St John's gospel um uh I call you servants no longer I have called you friends he's using the the noun philos which is the usual affectionate word for friend here it's a a different kind of word it's it's a companion in some kind of work and you remember how we spotted the the two other times that word was used in St Matthew's gospel as a an a way of designating someone one it is from the landowner the vineyard owner to the grumbling workers at the end of that long Parable friend hiari I do you no wrong there's almost an irony for these people are grumbling against the generosity to all of the vineyard owner and on the other occasion it's to the person who having been invited to the great wedding feast and responded to that generosity doesn't make themselves ready friend hiari how came you in here without a wedding garment however poor and however ragged that garment the sense of making an effort and of course it's a a metaphor for the way in which we respond with gratitude that is the wedding gar gratitude how came you in here and once again there's a almost an irony in the word so these things are important in the way that we get from St Matthew what is going on here well let's just look at some of the dates uh that are associated with this and uh they're they're they a lovely collection this morning on July the 26th 1875 Carl Yung was was born the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst for a while uh a a fellow worker and thinker and great friend of Sigman Freud but they fell out in the way in which they wanted to express what they were studying and the two ways diverged and the yion as we call it kind of of psychological typology became different but it it will be far too much to go into that and I'm certainly not skilled to do it but the sense of psychological types is something which has caught the imagination of so many and uh uh we at a particular time not only of our training uh but also later on as books were published with one another would involve ourselves with psychological types with a very simplistic kind of of yion uh test which was called the Myers Briggs test and we remember that uh in that there are different psychological types so extrovert and introvert people who rely on their senses people who rely on their intuition people who rely on their thinking their logical thinking people who rely on their feelings people who rely on their judgment people who rely on their perception and those categories of course can be mixed as they go through but if you've ever looked at that book which became very popular please understand me by David kiry and Marin bit it's all based on this of people trying to get to know themselves and saying well of course I do this because I'm one of these and the letters became very I'm an EST ESTJ or I'm an INF FP and all of those things and in that to remember if you've done it uh and it's great fun to do doing it on your friends and things of that kind we used to enjoy it hugely um because there were about I don't know 70 questions or something and you didn't know what you were giving away by answering the questions and they were questions like if I think of some of them um if you're standing in the queue in the supermarket and you're in the aisle going up to the cash desk which says you can carry only seven items do you look in front to see if any of the people in front of you have eight or more and then go up and tell them and the answer is for some yes of course I do and to others no I wouldn't actually think of it at all I'd be far too embarrassed to do that and then other ones are you're you're you're in the house together and the telephone rings are you always the first one to leave up and answer it or are you the one who thinks I hope somebody else answers that and if you're watching television together are you the one who has the controlling Gizmo of channels in their hand and won't let go of it or does someone else fler is pointing to himself um or is someone else the one who uh has the Gizmo and and uh is is uh you're you're very happy with that uh and you don't particularly want to be doing it now that's just three at random there are hosts but what they're saying is that people have different kinds of characteristics but the great danger of this is you'll think well I'm one of those so you would expect it of me wouldn't you and that actually then tends to get rid of what we've kept saying the unique utterly unique combination of gifts and skills which makes up you or me and in that sometimes one can deny that by setting things aside and saying oh but I'm this sort of person I've been tested and it causes me to go to that story in the beginning of St John's gospel when Jesus himself is calling his disciples you think how in the the the old Greek oracle at Deli along the the the the the uh entrance was carved those maxims and one of them was know yourself and here is Jesus coming with um or rather Philip bringing Nathaniel to Jesus and Jesus says beholden is Right indeed where there is no God and what is nathanel say how do you know me and and because he realizes Jesus does know him through and through something about that meeting how do you know me and Jesus answers I saw you under the fig tree before Phillip called you how often in the gospels the eyes of Jesus this the the sense that he has the intuition of Jesus backed up by by all those things of the 30 years of thinking of the the scriptures but also registering the gifts of the Creator all around him have formed that perfect knowledge that his eyes spot in someone seeing value where everyone else saw no value seeing good or faith where everyone else said no it's not there and the grace to transform that is the gift of the spirit and uh car Yung wouldn't be averse to any of that he was brought up as the son of a of a minister and would say to people often if they came for some kind of counseling in that he found they belong to a Christian Community well um let's start there because what um I can attempt to do Jesus would do better for you and we remember that this morning I also remember that he was immensely influential on a a writer that I enjoy reading very much Herman Hess another Swiss and his novels contain so much of all of this the glass bead game steppen wolf but sedata but most of all for me naris and Goldman set in that medieval Monastery of the two young men remember that Tom Tom Daly and and Matty Lee synchronized and the fact that the one had to synchronize with the other but these two young monks had such different gifts within them and the one was trying to emulate the other until nzis says to Goldman this isn't for you this isn't for you go and find yourself in the world your gifts are there and so it turns out and at the end it's Goldman who through a a very checkered life comes back to the monastery where narcis has remained the whole of his time and is now in a superior position but he able Able by his skill and crossmon ship to create something which enriches the life of the other different gifts different skills and these things can be discovered through failure and pain and by the sentence of another I I saw you I know you have those gifts and then uh uh lastly I wanted to this morning to say that on the 26th of July 1885 Andre Mara the French biographer of so many and the intuition he had into people's characters in the writing of lovely and I say lovely biographies because you really get to know the person but through the lens of the writer Andre Mara and that's a different kind of focus um here's a a list of some of the ones he was a French writer but he wrote wonderful biographies of shell Byron Disraeli Dickens Walpole Raskin wild chatau Bon volter PR BAC all of them and at the same time uh wrote lovely stories too but in quar into someone else's life then you get to know yourself better too but have to be prepared that someone may Quarry into your life too the probably the most important thing about car Yung was his red book which he left which was an enormous bound volume into which he poured the distilled versions of what he called his black book The Black Book was a series a long series of notebooks and uh he took 15 years to transcribe not just in words but as you've done in some of your Lenton projects paintings and all kinds of things and left that for posterity bound and uh now that has been published but it's all of that thinking and quaring and then what people tell you which makes you go on and realize things how do you know me said Nathaniel to Jesus I saw you under the fig tree before Philip brought you and all those things we give thanks for the way in which we are known through and through and the total unique complexity of what we are so that we discover new gifts in ourselves daily with which to encourage others and they're like the gold flowers in the middle of all this bright shining when we discover them but shining even more when we share them to lighten the way for people and we will be very different people but nevertheless we can light each other's way let's say our prayers on this morning see actually you'll hear Darcy gobbling outside the gate he's not allowed in here we don't want him pecking off flowerheads so we say our prayers on this morning of the month and we're praying in the Anglican communion for for the dasis of Delaware in the Episcopal Church of the United States and for Archbishop Justin Bishop Rose of DOA Bishop Tim at Lamberth and the uh Parish of St Faith with ringlestone Hall in Maidstone and the parish priest there Arthur houon so bring your own prayers and intentions on this particular day to a new collect for this week Almighty Lord and everlasting God we beseech you to direct sanctify and govern both our hearts and bodies in the ways of your laws and the works of your Commandments that through your most Mighty protection both here and ever we may be preserved in body and soul through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen the last two weeks we've had lovely collects where they were easy to remember that for me is a difficult one to remember perhaps you'll have better better uh luck with it but I shall have to read it throughout this week let's say the prayer Our Savior taught us this we can remember in whatever language you we like to say 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 power and the glory forever and ever amen so to the noises of morning and to the color of the flowers have some time to say your own prayers with me this morning a [Applause] oh 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 those whom you would pray for today and always amen so here among the flowers here's a a a clap for the divers synchronized with each other and for the the wonderful success of Tom after failure four years ago and uh at the same time may all of you be Olympians with your own gifts today and find gold in the midst of everything that will shine for others in encouragement in their own lives oh