good morning and welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral on this morning of saturday the 16th of october our nation is in shock at the moment and it's a shock filled with horror at the brutal murder of one of our respected members of parliament as yesterday he was taking his surgery which means sitting and listening to the problems of those he represented he was the mp for south uh south end west in essex sir david amis one of our most respected mps he'd served parliament for almost 40 years in two different constituencies but as he sat listening to the problems of his constituents he was brutally stabbed to death in a horrendous attack witnessed by his pa and his secretary who must be completely traumatized but our hearts go out this morning to his wife julia and to his son and four daughters it's only a week since we were remembering um cathy and and the family at the death of james brokenshire but this is very different this is an intentional murder of a member of parliament and it causes us to remember the danger in which public figures walk at this time in our nation and our world's history and i know that that all kinds of questions will be asked about the security of people doing informal things like listening sensitively to the problems of their constituents here as representatives in parliament for them and friday and saturday morning's traditional days for of the week for that to happen with members of parliament but uh sir david was was sitting in a methodist church hall at leon c in an ordinary activity and then suffered this brutal murder and so the horror of the nation is profound and our sympathy with his family his friends his constituents and also with all members of parliament who themselves are are looking at their their timetables as as all public figures must be at this time this has been declared an act of terrorism so we remember that and the danger in which public figures walk as we begin our prayers this morning it's a most beautiful morning an autumn morning i'm sitting by the stream in the orchard here under the fruit trees the fruit mostly now having been gathered and under above me a mulberry tree and around me and the sun coming up onto the high sycamores and willow trees but at the moment not reaching down to here so early in the morning as we begin our prayers on this day o 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 and 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 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 are some on this morning of the month sometimes we've read psalm 80 on the 16th morning of the month but i'm going to read one of the other morning psalms psalm 81 this morning and it will fit with our lesson as well sing merrily to god our strengths shout for joy to the god of jacob take up the song and sound the timbrel the tuneful liar with the harp blow the trumpet at the new moon as at the full moon upon our solemn feast day for this is a statute for israel a law of the god of jacob the charge he laid on the people of joseph when they came out of the land of egypt i heard a voice i did not know that said i eased their shoulder from the burden their hands were set free from bearing the load you called upon me in trouble and i delivered you i answered you from the secret place of thunder and proved you at the waters of meribah hear o my people and i will admonish you o israel if you would but listen to me there shall be no strange god among you you shall not worship a foreign god i am the lord your god who brought you up from the land of egypt open your mouth wide and i shall fill it but my people would not hear my voice and israel would not obey me so i sent them away in the stubbornness of their hearts and let them walk after their own counsels oh that my people would listen to me that israel would walk in my ways then i should soon put down their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries those who hate the lord would be humbled before him and their punishment would last forever but israel would i feed with the finest wheat and with honey from the rock would i satisfy them a psalm full of the old testament story which we're reading at the moment in the book of the exodus and also resonances of further exiles in the history of god's people leading up to the time of the new covenant of our lord jesus christ and all the culture in which he lived and the lessons he knew from childhood and those psalms which we've often said were his particular hymn book but speaking of historic events and using images from them to illustrate the way in which earth and heaven respond to the hand of the creator so let us continue now the the reading of the book of exodus and i'm reading from chapter 7 and starting at verse 14. today we begin the story of the 10 plagues verse 14 then the lord said to moses pharaoh's heart is hardened he refuses to let the people go go then to pharaoh in the morning as he is going out to the water stand on the bank of the nile to meet him and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent and you shall say to him the lord the god of the hebrews sent me to you saying let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness but so far you have not obeyed thus says the lord by this you shall know that i am the lord behold with the staff that is in my hand i will strike the water that is in the nile and it shall be turned into blood the fish sorry i'm having difficulty telling that page [Applause] there we the fish in the nile shall die and the nile will stink and the egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the nile and the lord said to moses say to aaron take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of egypt over their rivers their canals and their ponds and all their pools of water so that they may become blood and there shall be blood throughout all the land of egypt even in vessels of wooden in vessels of stone moses and aaron did as the lord commanded in the sight of pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the nile and all the water in the nile turned into blood and the fish in the nile died and the niles stank so that the egyptians could not drink water from the nile there was blood throughout all the land of egypt but the magicians of egypt did the same by their secret arts so pharaoh's heart remained hardened and he would not listen to them as the lord had said pharaoh turned and went into his house and he did not take even this to heart and all the egyptians dug along the nile for water to drink for they could not drink the water of the nile the first of the ten plagues and there's much we can reflect on here we may do a little bit of should we call it biblical scholarship i tried to keep away from technicalities as we were telling these stories but this time i think it it helps us to think of this but also it helps us to remember that over the plagues and over the journey it's as though the heavens and the earth and created things things which grow and things which live and the seasons and the days and the years are taking their part in the story of the vocation of god's chosen people as they always do at any time in history and the reading of the signs and the way people interpret them are intensely important as we see constantly in the psalms the way in which these signs are used as illustrations giving earthly facts as spiritual lessons and it is very hard to read the story of the new covenant in the books of the new testament as it's hard to read the psalms without knowing these stories of the old covenant which have been handed on and on and on through the earlier centuries and the way in which those first five books which we call the pentateuch or the torah as they're known to the jewish faith and held precious those five books are a multitude a weaving a tapestry of different hands writing them down probably from oral tradition and from deep memories of faith and of stories which are easy to tell mixing with those lessons of faith in creation and human story we've seen that but scholars and throughout the 20th century there was a a large consensus about this scholars identified four different strands in the pentateuch which had been woven together and those hands in different centuries and the minds and the spirituality and the faith which combined to make that tapestry of the pentateuch were resulting in the books that we now read and that consensus has broken down a little bit since that total consensus of scholarship in the 20th century but let's start there because it's easy to to um then picture the strands the first strand is generally called j and that is seen to be the earliest strand in that consensus the consensus which was called the documentary hypothesis no need to remember that at all and in those days the strand j was a strand which knew god as yahweh jehovah hence the j and as that strand which was located by scholars as early as the 10th and 9th century bc as that happened then that yahweh shall we call that writer shape the story according to the spirituality and faith that he or she knew we've no idea who that was and no doubt there were other hands using that same kind of of uh theology or spirituality to write down that strand in the ninth century that was added to as the consensus uh gave us in the many years when there was that total consensus in the 9th century it was added to by a strand which is just labeled by the letter e this is a bit like new testament putting together the synoptic gospels with q and and everything else as the source well e was a strand where the eloist called god by a different name now in your bibles sometimes in the pentateuch god is called the lord in capital letters representing the yahwest and sometimes simply translated god as representing the illust and those two weave together and then we come down to another strand in the seventh to sixth century and this is called d because it's the strand of the fifth book of the pentateuch the deuteronomist who actually did things in a completely different way and has a different tone and flavor and then finally to the last hand it was recognized so other hands may have taken part in that and that strand is called p because it's a priestly hand in the sixth and fifth century bc which is shaping things in a way which gives order to liturgical life and much of that may have been done in the captivity in babylon when these things were being remembered treasured and written down and completed maybe even um later in the persian period from 450 to 350 the consensus is broken down because it's seen to be too neat neat things are are pleasant for me and they're easier to understand that's why i've given it to you but the most important thing to remember is that different hands and different strands are shaping the material that is in front of them and the priestly hand tries to smooth these things out to the yahwest moses staff is simply his ordinary shepherds staff to the priestly hand it becomes aaron's rod which blossoms and is used almost in a liturgical way stretch out your hand over the nile that's aaron and the two strands this morning come together with moses taking his staff his shepherd staff from the time when he was before the burning bush and the boy said what is that in your hand a staff it's his shepherd's staff he was in his sheep on the other hand here is a a priestly symbol in the the strand of the the the writer named by the letter p we say all this because it's difficult to conceive of the lengths of history which put all those strands together into the pentateuch and then was carried forward into the books of the old testament as we know it the old covenant right through to the hellenistic the greek period following alexander the great we've been reading at matins in the cathedral recently the book of the maccabees telling that story at that time from the apocryphal writings of the scriptures which i sometimes read and all of this were pushing back now in our story to the exodus itself but you don't have to look far into the psalms as we saw this morning or into the new testament gospels with the teaching of jesus or the epistles with the writing of saint paul or the writing of someone like the writer to the hebrews or any of the apostles and you don't even have to look farther than the book of revelation to find plagues of this sort being reflected in the thinking and imagery of the one who is giving us spiritual lessons but they're also lessons of creation here we have i'm sitting here purposely here we have the stream running through our own garden and the stream is of course lifeblood for so many creatures who come to drink here just now there was little robins sitting here who'd come down for a drink and you perhaps saw that the two pigs came down to drink before that when we let ducky and uh and all and great uh darcy out and russell and russell of course is the father of all those pretty little chicks you were looking at yesterday in morning prayer but but here um we're seeing a stream which gives refreshment and life life to hedgehogs life to creatures like frogs that we we hardly see because they come out at night or secretly to use it but life to black birds and thrushes who come down and rejoice in the fact that life to slow worms as they go through and all the all the amphibious creatures who come in we have turtles also in the bottom there and fish and this this is good fresh water coming through the garden and at the same time the trees take from that the the the life of standing around by the water falling on them well now all of these things are of enormous significance in the way the plagues work out for something desperate and tragic is happening to created life in egypt at that time and in those hundreds of years and the conflation may come together at that time here's our little robin back again and looking very brave as he's come down for a drink in the water good morning and hello we love your song and you've kept us company through warm times and cold all through the year you're a very beautiful bird indeed uh and we we come to the point where the nile and those of you who've been to egypt or as i remember very well been on the nile in the sudan and the south sudan where the old steamers when i was there used to take off from the city of juba but you had to take all your own kit with you because nothing much was supplied on those boats very different on the boats that are tourist boats in egypt itself who've come to see the sights of the nile there but it's the same river coming up through africa right up through to the mediterranean sea lifeblood for egypt particularly as it goes through and uh at this time something happens to the waters of the nile it's impossible to analyze but people see it as a spiritual lesson and as that whatever happened it's been put down by people to a volcanic activity at the delta of the nile of algae of a particular kind what it meant was the nile became poisonous for that time and everything then follows on as a sequence and people associate that with the hebrews whom they've made slaves being around there and moses and aaron are reading the signs and sent by god use those signs to begin to loosen the pharah's grip and his officer's grip on the slavery of the people we've no idea how long this lasts it's conflated in one two three four five six seven eight nine ten plagues because it's good to have an ordered hand doing that but that ordered hand they have been ordering the material five centuries later then the first writing down of something which before had been handed on by oral tradition and i think i may have to rescue the tray but we shall see in a moment whether or not winnie is going to take too much notice here but the water yeah i think i may put it this side say that you don't actually upset everything and i don't think the robin will do that but i think you could couldn't you and uh at this this time um we we are beginning our journey through the plagues this power of nature suddenly to turn on the 16th of october in the year 1987 this part of england woke up to devastation following the worst storm should be known for at least 500 years in which 15 million trees had been uprooted and and completely destroyed uh forests and and beautiful trees of of of great age simply blown over and uprooted and many of them impossible to save at the same time there was devastation along the coasters as huge ships were were thrown onto the shore people were killed at the time and at the same time so much property was damaged other parts of england had the storm but not at the same level but this part of england right up through to kew gardens in london all of this suffered on that day a devastation and people at their homes and fetter remembers this felt that enormous damage was going to be done and and were in fear through the night of what might happen but the devastation to property and everything was complete and we remember an unfortunate weather forecaster uh the day before when a woman had rung up and said is there going to be a hurricane saying oh no no it don't no there's nothing to worry about whatsoever and he never lived that down michael poor michael fisher good afternoon to you earlier on today apparently a woman rang the bbc and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way well if you're watching don't worry there isn't but it was a devastating scene and it was caused uh by a a natural event which happens every seven or eight years by la nina in the south pacific which becomes el nino uh and and then begins to travel around reversing the humboldt current and causing really a watering of the earth but sometimes so powerful that that watering of the earth becomes a a threat to life as it goes on and so it was on that morning when people looked out and couldn't believe the damage and devastation done the stirrings of la nina are happening at the moment in the south pacific and who can say what the currents will be doing but this is the way the natural forces work and here we are at the same time talking about natural forces with the river nile the only watercourse that is in egypt itself and perhaps it's worth remembering also that the very famine that joseph went to protect the egyptians from before the seven year famine another natural event which devastated egypt but they were saved from hunger by the arrival of the hebrews now they begin to blame the hebrews for the events which are happening around the river nile so all of that shows the forces of the creation being used as signs by moses and aaron at this time but also the egyptians beginning bit by bit to blame their misfortunes on these people that they have made into slaves well this is a story which will go on and on with us because there are ten plagues but they are natural plagues and they are being used as signs by god's people reading the signs as jesus himself tells people to do read the signs and use them in conjunction with the way the creator gives you particular tasks and vocations at this time so let's think then of some of the dates that come on this particular day on this day in the year 1555 two martyrs in our calendar suffered death by being burnt at the stake both of them were bishops of the church of england one hugh latimer was the bishop of worcester and the other nicholas ridley the bishop of the diocese of london and westminster as it then was latimer had been bishop of worcester since 1535 ridley bishop of london and westminster since 1550 but martyrdom of that sort in in different sections of the christian church was something which was not uncommon during those years at the closing years of the reign of henry viii through the reign of edward vi through the reign of queen mary into the reign of queen elizabeth in that 16th century picture martyrdom by horrendous methods and burning at the stake was a dreadful and awful way to die just as being hanged and drawn and quartered as how many jesuit priests suffered when they were captured here throughout that period then all of that we remember now with horror but at that time it was considered a just punishment for wrong theology wrong ecclesiology i leave youtube to deal with that but but at the time both bishop ridley and bishop latimer and later um archbishop cranmer were burnt at the stake in the broad street in oxford where um a martyrs memorial now stands to the three of them the the martyrs the oxford martyrs those three called but at this at the same time um we we have uh the the courage of latimer and ridley as they go to the stake by order of queen mary at that time and as they've as they've come um to that time um perhaps this is the time to put the trade back again because our friend winnie has come round this side and is is fancying the fresh water of the stream and but at the same time um we remember the courage of these two martyrs most of the portraits in the deanery are of deans but we do strangely i absolutely have no idea why have a portrait of hugh latimer and we remember that uh nicholas ridley who was facing a terrible thing because the fires beneath him would not would not start and so his death was long and and and tortuous and and latimer called across be of good comfort and play the man master ridley we shall this day light such a candle by god's grace in england as i trust shall never be put out and the the fact that uh he's when he is licking the leather of my shoes the fact that he is said to have said that and that quote was was uh given by those witnessing this horrendous spectacle of the two bishops being burned to death at the stake causes our portrait which was painted after his death to have him there as uh uh holding the bible but as a candle and that lantern is is important in the portrait well at the same time this is the day another conflagration when in 1834 the houses of parliament as they then were burned to the ground in the biggest conflagration since 1666 and we remember that uh uh occasion as the the birth of a new parliament only westminster hall was saved but what you see now was then planned and built again after that and this is a day when we're remembering the safety of members of parliament let's then on this day um say our prayers and give thanks for the courage of those throughout history who have read the signs but at the same time have stood firm for the faith in which they believed we're praying this morning in the uh calendar of anglican prayer for the diocese of gauguile uh appropriately in the province of the episcopal church of south sudan in the northern bar el ghazal province the area of the the sudan there and at the same time in this diocese for archbishop justin for rose bishop of dover emma bishop at lambeth and today for the church of saint anthony at capel the fern and sint radigan done harm saint lawrence uh all comes in tanzania with capri la femme radigand and harvards and lawrence with brian williams in his ministry there and his people we remember the uh royal air force museum particularly at capo uh le fernando so let's say the collect for today the last time the colleague we've been learning all week oh god for as much as without you we are not able to please you mercifully grant that your holy spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts through jesus christ our lord amen so we pray the prayer our savior taught us each in our own language 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 are men moment of silence now as the bell rings for your prayers [Music] what what [Applause] 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 [Music] right winnie i must go to matins in the cathedral you