good morning and welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral on this morning of thursday the 9th of september another lovely september morning and yesterday we were with joseph and his uh amazing technicolor dreamcoat as we were remembering with the andrew lloyd webber and tim rice musical which so many know with its rather famous songs and the colors of the herbaceous borders with all their multi-colored flowers especially the golds of autumn at this time of year which are beginning to predominate all of those were part of the background to that story of joseph there at home with his father and his brothers and that story we we left at that point following the two dreams today the story is very different and we will take up from where we left off in our reading but i've come to sit here at the entrance to the orchard to give a i won't say darker but not so colorful a scene because we shall go through some very difficult human times for joseph in today's reading but for the moment let's remember some of those places that we would want to pray for just some as we call them news flashes across the world at random two hospital disasters have occurred one in northern macedonia where a terrible fire broke out in a makeshift hospital for those with sirius covid19 that had been taken there for their welfare 10 died in the fire and at the moment there's no account of those who have been in some way injured it's near the town of tetova in northern macedonia and many have been taken away to hospitals in scotland but we think of that particular tragedy there together with another tragedy in a hospital in tula in mexico where 16 have died in hospital as a result of flash floods following torrential rain these human situations of our own fragility on the planet and the things which can suddenly break out at a moment's notice and cause danger and cause other people to put their own lives in danger rescuing folks so let's think of both those situations let's think two of political situations like canada's approaching election and the campaign where certain hostilities have broken out so we're thinking of the people of canada as that election uh comes nearer and nearer and praying for them we're thinking of the people of bulgaria which is the least vaccinated nation in the european union and is facing a deadly surge of the pandemic we're thinking of australians who today are keeping an r-u-o-k day when when they're to ask each other are you really okay and that's taking into account the fact that so many are in lockdown but at the same time are to ask one another about their emotional their mental health saying are you really okay and if you're noticing someone like that that's not just a thing for australia it's for all of us to take into account noticing how our friends are and are you really okay day and then one or two species and let's just name the tuna who are bouncing back from the brink of extinction because of regulations about the fishing of them all those things on this day some good some really difficult and somewhere people are in grave danger and have been bereaved by the situation let's begin our prayers then on this day and wherever you are in the world bring your own prayers and concerns and intentions for the day oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise visit us with your salvation and sustain us with your gracious spirit blessed are you sovereign god creator of all to you be glory and praise forever you founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands in the fullness of time you made us in your image and in these last days you have spoken to us in your son jesus christ the word made flesh as we rejoice in the gift of your presence among us let the light of your love always shine in our hearts your spirit ever renew our lives and your praises ever be on our lips blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever are men our psalm on this ninth morning of the month is psalm 46. god is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble therefore we will not fear though the earth be moved and though the mountains tremble in the heart of the sea there the waters rage and swell and though the mountains quake at the towering seas there is a river whose streams make glad the city of god the holy place of the dwelling of the most high god is in the midst of her therefore shall she not be removed god shall help her at the break of day the nations are in uproar and the kingdoms are shaken but god utters his voice and the earth shall melt away the lord of hosts is with us the god of jacob is our stronghold come and behold the works of the lord what destruction he has wrought upon the earth he makes wars to cease in all the world he shatters the bow and snaps the spear and burns the chariots in the fire be still and know that i am god i will be exalted among the nations i will be exalted in the earth the lord of hosts is with us the god of jacob is our stronghold [Music] so we turn back to the book of genesis to the story of joseph and his brothers and i'm continuing in chapter 37 of the book of genesis and beginning at verse 12 which is where we left off yesterday now joseph's brothers went to pasture their father's flock near shechem and israel said to joseph are not your brothers pastoring the flock at come i will send you to them and joseph said to his father here i am so he said to him go now see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock and bring me word so he sent joseph from the valley of hebron and he came to shechem and a man found him wandering in the fields and the man asked joseph what are you seeking i am seeking my brothers he said tell me please where they are pasturing the flock and the man said oh they have gone away for i heard them say let us go to dosan so joseph went after his brothers and found them in dothan the brothers saw him from afar and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him they said to one another here comes this dreamer come now let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him and we will see what will become of his dreams but when ruben heard it he rescued joseph out of their hands saying let us not take his life and rubin said to them shed no blood throw him into this pit here in the wilderness but do not lay a hand on him he said this so that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father so when joseph came to his brothers they stripped him of his many coloured coats and they took him and threw him into a pit the pit was empty there was no water in it then the brothers sat down to eat and looking up they saw a caravan of ishmaelites coming from gilead with their camels bearing gum balm and myrrh on their way to carry it down to egypt then judah said to his brothers what profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood come let us sell him to the ishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him for he is our brother our own flesh and his brothers listen to him then midianite traders passed by and they drew joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and the brothers sold him to the ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver and they took joseph to egypt when rubin returned to the pit and saw that joseph was not in the pit he tore his clothes and returned to his brothers and said the boy is gone and i where shall i go then they took joseph's robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the many coloured coats in the blood and they sent the robe of many colors and brought it to his father and said this we have found please identify whether it is your son's robe or not and jacob identified it and said it is my son's robe a fierce animal has devoured him joseph is without doubt torn to pieces then jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son for many days all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him but jacob refused to be comforted and said no i shall go down to sheol to my son morning thus his father wept for him meanwhile the midianites had sowed him in egypt to potiphar an officer of pharaoh the captain of the guard this story is a story which enjoys being told it's full of detail colorful detail not just that many colored coat but colorful detail of the characters little incidents the story of the man in uh shechem telling joseph where to go what are you seeking always reminds me of a little scene in pilgrim's progress with pilgrim going along and getting information on the way yes i heard them say they're going to dosan and so on joseph going along in his many colored coats a dreamer but unaware of the desperate danger which is nearby through the jealousy of his brothers this becomes with jacob's grief which isn't only of course because of joseph it's because joseph reminds him so much of rachel his beloved wife who had died in bethlehem in childbirth with benjamin and so it's a story of love and life and death and truth and deceit and accidental happenings of people passing by of good intentions reuben the eldest of the brothers thinking how he can save joseph from death but only being brave enough to tell half the plan to the brothers because his original plan we're told was to restore him to his father and the brothers having another idea as they're sitting eating quite unconcernedly as quite by chance a camel train passes by they must have been on the route to egypt and we're even told what kind of goods the camel chain were carrying it's a story that deserves to be told and was no doubt passed on by word of mouth and the details are there a story such as we love hearing in terms of its detail because all kinds of twists and turns are happening there and there's an should we say it an episodic nature to the story it has breaks in it has breaks in it like a modern soap opera where you you're with one set of people and then suddenly there's a break and you go to another set of people and then there's a break and you go to a completely different set of people and sometimes for some long time and before coming back to the other and there the situation has moved on that's why it feels much more modern than the things that we have been reading in the book of genesis up to now but throughout it undergirding it is a plan of the almighty for the way things will go forward so that here we start with jacob in that rural landscape we were describing yesterday jacob's good intention to send his son as a messenger to see how his brothers are and to come back with hopefully good news not only of the brothers but of the flock as well the scene shifts a little bit of german journeying and as jacob arrives and has to get more directions on the way from a stranger uh the brothers looking up have bad intentions violent intentions all their jealousy boils over when they see their brother in his many coloured coat coming towards them and at that point their intentions turn to violent life and love focuses on death and hatred and the scene is a violent one as they throw joseph into the pit pit is often a word that we hear used in the psalms saved me from the pit with a capital p talking of that the darkness which can surround us at any time or the darkness which one fears one will face without god and then comes back to that that wonderful sentence in the psalm in 139 which says if i go down into hell thou art there also but we hear that and the story moves on and at the end joseph moves to a completely different scenario but then we leave him again and come back and we're with the brothers deciding how they're going to tell their father and we then come to jacob again at the homestead with the brothers deceitfully showing him the many colored coat covered in blood and jacob the story turns not only to love again but it's death and grief having lost rachel he's now lost joseph and he says his gray hairs will go down in sorrow to shield and the grave all of that we shall continue as we continue the story tomorrow and for a while we shall find ourselves in egypt where another joseph fled to with his wife and son to safety later on at the beginning of the story of the new covenant but today there are some dates which talk about great scenes in that way but talk about the almost accidental coming of great leaders and then with the moving on of time and perhaps the death or defeat of or final failure of those leaders the picture changes on this day in 1976 mount si tung died now through all my years of more than growing up mao tsitung was a a massive character in the on the world stage and the cultural revolution and the little red book of chairman mao became an enormous aspect of what was the landscape political landscape of the world through the 1950s through the 1960s and up until 1976 and then it at that moment death ended mount si tung's uh reign there in power and china like every nation moved on and that now seems a long time back in history on this day in 1087 william the conqueror died in almost an accident in battle and his name is most associated with the date 1066. when at the battle of hastings he defeated the saxon king harold and became king of england having come from normandy and at that time he began to should we say consolidate the english nation he came and gave enormous strength to the position of the archbishop of canterbury we have a document here uh signed by the various abbots and bishops of england at the time setting out the the primacy of canterbury and giving authority to the archbishop across the land because william liked order he liked his cathedral churches and he liked also his political centers to be where he could see them and the norman conquest as it's called 1066 became a great date forward but the document which we have in our archive here which is a very precious one bears the signatures of the archbishop lan frank and various others but william for all his power was not able to read and write he just simply sets his mark on there and that was a sign which was ordering the nation all of those things and then suddenly in 1087 it was no more william the conqueror had died and power moved on and the nation moved on but what he'd set as a foundation stone became immensely important now i'm leading up to the fact that on this day on september the 9th 1828 leo tolstoy was born and if i mention tolstoy normally the first thing that comes into mind is war and peace novel which many believe to be the the greatest novel ever written but tolstoy said it's not really a novel nor is it a parrot is it philosophy is it theology or is it simply a setting of a landscape with twists and turns and characters so many characters that many people are put off by that book by the confusion of getting to know so many characters and also within that book war is as important as peace in shaping character and shaping the landscape i i read it first and i had the the the then double volume penguin translation in 1966 or thereabout and i read it because it was part of a course i was doing and i had to read it so over a holiday i knew i had to read it it's the best way of beginning war and peace because you really have to dig into it and begin to get to know the characters and realize who they are and yet reading the book is really the only way every film every series every way of of trying to show war and peace in drama belittles the canvas that tolstoy has has painted for us in that book one of our favorite one films of war and peace is the one with audrey hepburn in and it's colorful it's wonderful it shows you the characters it deals with it in one long film and at the end of course you have wonderful images of it but tolstoy was wanting to do much more than that he was wanting to show how characters change and are developed and find their own vocation in the middle of a landscape which is full of war and peace and different societies now it's a novel in which both the tsar alexander and napoleon appear it's a novel in which five aristocratic families and all those who know them five different families are involved and it begins with the scene in 1805 a completely different battle scene that the one they're going towards but the most famous battle scenes of course are set in 1812. fink tchaikovsky's 1812 overture because there you are with the battle of borudino and napoleon having driven in to russia to go into the tsar's empire and become victorious there and yet the tsar and napoleon are shown by tolstoy to be almost figures on a chessboard in the great landscape and canvas of human life so if you ask who is the most important character in the book there is no real hero some focus on prince andre some focus on pierre some focus on natasha but how they change on the way through and sometimes figures that you feel oh that's my favorite character when you're reading it on the way through the thing turns round as it goes through and at the end there are huge passages of philosophy and being tolstoy theology for he was deeply religious and deeply wedded to the figure of jesus and the words which jesus spoke and it's that kind of of uh thinking which made his correspondence with mahatma gandhi right at the end of his life was a very short one because i mean the short correspondence because tolstoy died in 1910 but gandhi said he was one of the greatest influence on his way of thinking and all of that we have in that canvas and pierre becomes the thinker too and we think and wander with him many of you will have read the book and i've read it now i think three times and at different stages of life and also in different translations and the way in which those translations actually affect me probably have made a different effect but i think also the effect has been with the passing of my own years and thinking oh i see what's going on there now 20 years after having first first read it and then 20 years after that a different canvas all over again a huge landscape and as i said of the story of of genesis with joseph themes of love and life and death and truth and deceit and war and peace and violence and stillness and overall the amazing canvas of the sky and the wonderful green earth but also the desperate snows of the armies going in to russia in 1812 and the fires of moscow as moscow burned so that napoleon shouldn't have it and then the gradual retreat of the french army all these things going on and we're enjoying silence and also a bit something else is russell is greeting the morning rather too enthusiastically this morning torso is also known for something which obviously is is quite clearly a novel anna karenina um but war and peace is quite different and one sees why that tolstoy has become a gigantic figure in literature through that novel war and peace and i'm sure it that that that's not the last time i should have read it it's not too long a read but it is really one that can be transforming and life-changing and the way in which that biblical uh concept underlies it for tolstoy himself searched the scriptures and became really profound in what he thought in a life-changing way well we could go on a great deal about tolstoy it's rather like thomas mann's huge novel which is much longer um joseph and his brothers which i was talking about yesterday but let's say our prayers on this lovely morning and heed russell's cry that the morning has begun and we should be about our work this morning we're thinking in our anglican communion and praying for the diocese of isan in the church of nigeria the bendel province and i'm continuing to pray for the six parishes which make up the benefits of the six i wade lower holster newington stockbury upchurch and they are all set in a beautiful part of the swale valley but each has its own life each a different scene and character and again we pray for julian staniforth amanda lane and simeon neville in their ministry there this morning as we come to our prayers we wanted to pray this morning for our friend matthew corken who was until very recently the chairman of our friends in friends of canterbury cathedral in the united states i remember him when i came here first he was a very young man then but was an intrepid leader of pilgrimages here already and we've sadly heard we've watched his decline in health and we've sadly heard now that a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has been given als it's called or lou gehrig's disease and he's lost the ability to speak but not lost the ability to enjoy things being shown him and so uh matthew may be watching even this morning he's in the care of his father and mother tom and becky so we pray for them all there and give thanks for his enormous energy for pilgrimage and still were told by his friends his great love of canterbury let's think of all our friends who need our prayers on this particular day as we use the collect for today i'm sorry i've forgotten to pray for justin our archbishop and rose bishop of dover and tim bishop at lambeth of course we always pray for them on this day 14th sunday after trinity almighty god whose only son has opened for us a new and living way into your presence give us pure hearts and steadfast wills to worship you in spirit and in truth through jesus christ our lord amen moment now when we say the our father in whatever language you like to use to unite our congregation across the world 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 as the psalmist in our psalm 46 said this morning be still and know that i am god so ah so the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord 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 are men