good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of wednesday the 4th of august welcome to our morning prayers wherever you are in the world and bring your own concerns and uh your own prayers to this act of worship which we will do together today in the orchard but what you're looking at is the stream which runs down through the orchard and when we come to our reading from the book of genesis which is the second account of the creation of all things then the four rivers which surround the garden of eden as we like to call it and great rivers like tigris and euphrates well this is our little streamlet which is running down at the side of the orchard and you may notice around it that there are some bare patches this is all part of the evolution of the garden in the way that certain trees have grown up and given shady spaces which are more suited to different uh different kinds of plants but also give shade and different kinds of terrain for the animals and wild creatures which are around and the birds themselves to find different kinds of moisture and shade and roots and so on and so forth so all of this is is exalting in the diversity of creation as we go forward so let's on this day say our prayers and you'll find we have on the fourth morning a very apt psalm 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 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 so our psalm on this fourth morning of the month is psalm 19 and no better sound to be reading on this occasion the heavens are telling the glory of god and the firmament proclaims his handiwork one day pours out its song to another and one night unfolds knowledge to another they have neither speech nor language and their voices are not heard yet their sound has gone out into all lands and their words to the ends of the world in them has he set a tabernacle for the sun that comes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber and rejoices as a champion to run his course it goes forth from the end of the heavens and runs to the very end again and there is nothing hidden from its heat the law of the lord is perfect reviving the soul the testimony of the lord is sure and gives wisdom to the simple the statutes of the lord are right and rejoice the heart the commandment of the lord is pure and gives light to the eyes the fear of the lord is clean and endures forever the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether more to be desired are they than gold more than much fine gold sweeter also than honey dripping from the honeycomb by them also is your servant taught and in keeping them there is great reward who can tell how often they offend oh cleanse me from my secret faults keep your servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get dominion over me so shall i be undefiled and innocent of great offence let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight o lord my strength and my redeemer one can hardly avoid the music of haydn's creation flowing across that wonderful sun but at the same time the law of the lord is seen to be something fresh and good and lively and something which makes the eyes shine in in receiving it and and reading it it's not the way that we normally think of laws but this kind of law is a way in which the uh chosen people of our lord's own community would have seen god expressing himself in the laws which governed their lives and we shall come across a little of that this morning as certain hands interpret bits and pieces of the book of genesis on the way through but also there's that lovely lovely similarity of the law as sweeter than honey dripping from the honeycomb and making the eyes shine well that reminds me of that little moment in the davidic story the story of king david and of jonathan and where jonathan not knowing the command of his father that no member of the army shall eat uh and is meant to be fasting and he dips the end of his spear into the honeycomb and tastes it and the soldiers say well um you're not meant to be eating your father has decreed and and jonathan says come now what harm can there be in it see how the taste of the honey has made my eyes bright and there's this likening the law to that today the psalms so full of metaphors and similes and here's one for the of the sun rejoicing like a champion to run their course or like a bridegroom coming to his wedding on a particular day full of joy and glory so let's go to our reading in the book of genesis remembering once again that the psalms and the book of genesis were the absolute um forming formation of of our lord himself within that galilean culture that rural culture of galilee and how he developed all that in his vocation and we have been seeing that in the gospels but we're just putting in place some foundation stones which jesus is constantly referring to and we'll come to two more on friday morning when we go back to the new testament for the feast of the transfiguration but here this morning we've read through yesterday and the day before the first account of creation has seen how that is written down now we come to a completely different account starting again in chapter two and starting at uh verse four of chapter two another beginning and another hand writing these are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the lord god made the earth and the heavens when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up for the lord god had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no human being to work the ground and the mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground then the lord god formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature and the lord god planted a garden in eden in the east and there he put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground the lord god made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the site and good for food the tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil a river flowed out of eden to water the garden and there it divided and became four rivers the name of the first river is the paishon it is the one that flowed around the whole land of havilah where there is gold and the gold of that land is good bdellium and onix stone are there the name of the second river is the guihon it is the one that flowed around the whole land of cush and the name of the third river is the tigris which flows east of assyria and the fourth river is the euphrates the lord god took the man and put him in the garden of eden to work it and keep it and the lord god commanded the man saying you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die then the lord god said it is not good that the man should be alone i will make him a helper fit for him now out of the ground the lord god had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called every living creature that was his name the man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every creature of the field but for adam there was not found a helper fit for him so the lord god caused a deep sleep to fall upon adam and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the lord god had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man then the man said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed an ancient story but very different from the story of creation and its rhythms and its time and the way in which day by day the the litany of creation kept saying the lord's thought that god saw all that he had made and it was very good now i had to be careful there because our english bibles translate the word for god which is used in the book of genesis in different ways and that's because two different words are used for god the one a more general word elohim which is translated always god and that word was used all the way through yesterday in the first narrative the creator the other which is quite often now uh translated yahweh and our bibles have always said the lord then that actually begins to give us the beginnings of the abrahamic faith and the scriptures which very much rest on that which the three great uh abrahamic faiths judaism and christianity and islam use in their scriptures and quite often the two words in the book of genesis as with this chapter are used together in the latin that becomes dominus deus the lord god in the english as i've just said the lord god conflating the two the way in which language is used here begins to confound us and when we come to the the last chapter of this section of the book of genesis the tower of babel we'll see how the explanation in ancient terms of that confounding and diversity of human language separating people is is attempted to be explained but here we have that we're also confounded by the fact in our english language there are no successful pronouns which are non-gender specific and it makes it difficult to to read without putting the nouns or the names always in place about three times often in a sentence the moment you use the the pronoun it then the word becomes lifeless and if you use them then the singularity of this particular chapter becomes uh lifeless in the same way the thing falls apart but one has to remember that with this uh adam meant human being and adama means dust of the ground these are hebrew words and there's a note given in some of your translations in the new new revised standard version for example at the bottom explaining that play on words we have to remember also that the early church for 300 years a majority of the people were reading the old testament in the greek translation of the septuagint which had been written by by scholars translated into the greek i think in probably alexandria and that septuagint has origins going back in its manuscripts earlier than the earliest manuscripts of the masoretic text the hebrew text in some in some cases but it does mean that constantly there's plays on words which can't be reproduced and sometimes that gives offence and so one has to go back and think now here's a hand interpreting an ancient culture which is no longer the the culture that we live in but was the formation of the culture that jesus grew up in and it shows then the the radicalism of exactly what he saw his vocation as becoming and the way in which he interpreted the scriptures he knew them really well and the last sentence of today therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh is used and quoted by jesus when the disciples are asking him about how can a man divorce his wife and you remember he uses that but then turns it back on those who in the law and the prophets have used this text but then are finding all kinds of ways of getting round in it around it which is at that time much more advantageous to the man than the woman and all of these things come out in the the teaching and the way in which our lord uses the scriptures and for us to know those foundation stones and where he's coming from and later on what the names represent become hugely important well now today let's look at this and the way that this writer and all the way through the words are the lord god um conflating the two terms but the way in which this writer puts an account of creation together quite quite different there is a single human being created but there are descriptions which rely on geography and uh so we've got names like assyria or the river euphrates or the river tigris quite unlike the account that we read yesterday and also we have the concept in the middle of the orchard or garden or eden whatever words you like to translate it into is the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil these are attempts to find the answer and this is what's going to happen to things which exist but which really militate against the perfection of creation god saw all that he had made and behold it was very good but it also begins to introduce uh concepts like our need for company and companionship and the the phrase it's not good for the human being to be alone so that that singularity will be divided and created into a a companionship so deep but meanwhile the first thing that happens is that the creatures are formed and and adam the human being names the creatures now that also gives us a a foretaste of how we here's ducky coming down the garden and following all the others and we've named them because the sense of companionship of all these within creation human beings tend to to name things but the name of another human being becomes crucially important and in the in the resurrection narratives uh there is of course a a a a a time when it's just the name mary which means the sense of recognition to mary magdalene that the savior is there with her in the garden all of those things are present but for the moment we have this sense of adam let's give a name because it it causes us to see a human figure and all the animals and creatures and birds are brought to the human being to name and in this account and whatever name was given that became the name the problem is of course with the confusion of languages which happens a few chapter on we have different names for different things but if it's a personal name then we do our best to remember it and and and use just that and with any of our creatures if you name them particularly the cats and call them they will come and those cats have a degree of imagination all on their own whilst shaking his head because quite often they don't come if they're about their own business but they do know their names without any bother at all and we know our names and in the uh archive of the the library here there is a a best jury which is a description of creatures of all kinds and that was created in about the year 1300 and at that time many of the creatures really were the result of stories told and much imagination so that although there are lots of creatures there that we do know and correctly so there are also creatures like unicorns which are a compendium of different kinds of creatures and and tails and great monsters breathing fire and all of that kind of thing but there is the most wonderful drawing of adam naming the animals and every animal whatever they are big or small is there with eyes open and excitement waiting for the name to give it should we call it to use a human word personality which they have and imagination we are in no doubt of that and any of you who keep creatures will know that that they have particular characteristics just as we do but into this also comes a culture of shame and of fear and we need to know why that happened well tomorrow another story will give us an attempt not only to not not really to to explain but to put into context the fact that they are there because that picture of perfection where everything was blessed and good which was given to us yesterday is soon solid and these next few chapters give us the real depth of what went on and also the capacity of humankind to do completely different things but for the moment we're with the creatures and uh we're reminded of the way in which creatures by their imagination can play us and i think of our little cat lily who when she when she is wanting sympathy will will hold her poor up like this as if to say um i'm i'm only a frail creature it's the the lasting thing she is really she sleeps on fletcher's bed every night uh and and uh he knows that she has dreams and and in the night and i know this i remember monkey who used to sleep on my bed who died of course but he would dream and you're suddenly aware that there are some little noises going on and you're aware that the animal is dreaming as we dream and the deep sleep is then put onto adam here and at the same time that singularity is made into a duality of perfect companionship that's what's intended and then at the end there is an interpretation we don't know whether that came from the same hand but the interpretation is very much taken from the culture of that time and our lord quotes verse 24 as i've said in the teaching given in matthew and mark and quotes it as a way in which things could be perfect but there are all sorts of reasons why they aren't and very often those reasons are made by the machinations of those who have dominion and authority to evade what the perfection of the law says this we could go into in a a a really massive way but it becomes of course the thinking of our humanity within the context of the truth of the creator making us in his own image and giving us gifts of creativity and of language and language is something that has enormous strengths but also divisive and uh with enormous difficulty weaknesses and that too we know only too well when you have someone standing in front of you and the language you're using is just not understood well let's think also today that this is august the 4th i remember in the year 2000 on august the 4th and you may remember this we were celebrating on this day uh queen elizabeth the queen mother's 100th birthday and there was a a huge outrush of of affection for the queen mother at that time and we had a day of celebration but it's not that year i want to go to i want to go to 2014 because on this day in 2014 we remembered the centenary of the outbreak of the great war which changed europe beyond recognition and had such significance for the whole world and in terms of the spoiling of perfection then that conflict gave many men women children in different lands a sense of horror which had never been experienced before because of the magnitude of the conflict well on this day in 2014 at night at 10 o'clock all the lights of homes were asked to go out and an hour of darkness followed we were all in the cathedral and at that point we were remembering it was a full cathedral and we read passages about the way in which the war was received and then began to look at the darkness which would also ensue when huge numbers of deaths began to occur right across europe and other nations began to be drawn in from different parts of the world and we were all remembering the fact that sir edward gray who was the foreign secretary of of uh the united kingdom for longer than anyone else had ever been and ever has been since from 1905 to 1916 and it was edward gray the foreign secretary who had had to in the debate in the house of commons say that we would go to support france against the invasion from germany at that time and he was beginning to see the horror that would be unleashed and as you will remember looking out of the windows of the foreign office onto the park he saw the lamplighter going around and putting on the lamps and said to one of the foreign office civil servants standing beside him the lamps are going out all over europe we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime that sentence was read as the last candle went out and we stood in thick darkness because all floodlights were off and we came home and sort of just with a little help got ourselves in to the deanery knowing how much light meant but also recalling how people on that night almost embraced the conflict with their cheering and cheering in the mouth and gray who himself was a very keen naturalist and he and his wife during his years of foreign secretary he couldn't get right up into northumbria to his house at faladon his country house up there so they had bought a little cottage on the river test in hampshire and they would catch the earliest train out of london on saturday mornings and then get themselves down there and spend two quiet days and catch the last train back on sunday evenings so that they had had that space by the waters of the river test to enjoy the life he was an expert on birds and siegfried sassoon who knew him well later in his old age his eyesight went in in 1916 he left the foreign office and became the ambassador to the united states but soon after that had to give up all public life but the sound of the birds he could still recognize and there is a a lovely poem by sassoon of of that now sassoon is one of the war poets and the tragedy of the war affected him completely uh so that if you read the poems of rupert brooke at the beginning of the war and the war poets as the war went on and on then the atmosphere changes and the horror of what was happening and all that perpetrated comes evident and that stone in westminster abbey in poet's corner gives a range of poets in different ways some of them killed some died like brooke uh when they were on foreign service he died from a blood poisoning from an insect bite but nevertheless died in a foreign land and to to him um that poem which he wrote about if i should die think only this of me becomes hugely famous probably because he died there and yet the poetry of the the rest of the war and it was a it was a a time when people were great poets and we think of that with thanksgiving but on this day we remember that this day saw the beginning of the conflict when the lights went out and when they came on again not only at the end of the war but of the great pandemic of influenza which killed millions of people immediately after the war was over then that became a completely different world nothing would be the same again there was no going back to the beginning of 1914 the world had to go on and uh brook's statement at the beginning of the the the war god be thanked who has matched us with this hour was to be interpreted in a very different way as a prayer that god be prayed that we will be matched for this hour it's a prayer that we could we could sort of add in a way in different words up to our own knapsacks at this time when things are opening out and yet the world that we open out into will seem not just the same as it was when this pandemic started all these things we remember on this morning and the gifts that creation give us in a multitude of different ways and the ways in which spiritual writers way way way back have in words written down and let's go back to the is it history is it poetry is it theology is it philosophy is it truth it is truth one great truth and that is the receiving of light and life from the creator and creative gifts of our own and then in a new covenant in our own way of worshiping the receiving of salvation and the gift of god's spirit to recreate in us day by day with the gift of each new day our own capacity to be creators in our own life and give a ministry of encouragement and new life which stretches beyond the bounds of physicality which are only signs of the kingdom of heaven into that which is infinite which again is the gift of the creator far more infinite than any writer of those past centuries could even begin to imagine but now everything we learn makes us more aware of our fragility and the wonderful gift that has been given by the creator let's uh say our prayers on this day and we shall go on tomorrow we are praying on this particular day this fourth of august for the parishes in the north downs of kent and that's the area deanery of north stones we shall pray for them day by day as the the week goes on and the area dean of that area is john corbin so we will name the villages day by day but let's just pray for john's ministry in that whole area of the north downs area dinery and pray to for archbishop justin and for bishop rose and for bishop tim and in the anglican communion for the diocese of the dominican republic in the episcopal church of the united states here is the prayer for today almighty god who sent your holy spirit to be the life and light of your church open our hearts to the riches of your grace that we may bring forth the fruit of the spirit in love and joy and peace through jesus christ our lord amen and we say now each in our own language recognizing the diversity of language and the way language means completely different things with different words but we say the prayer our savior taught us however we would like to use it 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 your own prayers so so three 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 [Music] you