good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of thursday the 23rd of september as we come together to say our morning prayers it's very early yes and the heavy dew is still on the lawn but we have a pure blue sky this morning a september blue sky which is rich in the color blue a deeper color blue and the sun has not yet crested above the trees of the orchard or the great ash tree at the end of the garden though its gleams are coming across the lawn but i'm sitting here in front of the medler tree that's spelt m-e-d-l-a-r it's a fruiting tree and it's covered in its fruits as are all the trees of the orchard it's also got a small white flower still blossoming it's long past flowering season but some of the trees and shrubs just put out a flower well past flowering season almost to identify themselves from time to time the wisteria does that and the magnolias will do that the odd flower in the middle of all the leafy foliage long plast past flowering season and here's one tiny flower to say this is what my flowers look like but the fruits of the medler are hanging hard at the moment on the tree and it'll be many weeks yet before we harvest them when they become softer and ready to make into jams and jellies for christmas time they make a a lovely jelly and in the pot if you put it in a glass pot on shall we say the the boxing day the stephens day table with the cold meats left over from christmas day the candle light shining through that color is magnificent but for the moment these fruits hang hard you have to let them and there's an old english word you have to let them blet which to grow sweet and ripe in maturity in old age it's a lovely concept but we wait for that with the medler and then the medler is something that we can give round as gifts we have a an amusing story about that because there was a lady and she was very very interested in in just sort of taking part in everyone else's affairs around the place and would go and uh with the best of intentions i'm sure be part of things which were really nothing to do with her own her own story and we gave her quite innocently a pot of medler jam and on the side it said the jeanery medler jelly or jam and after christmas she said um i i received your gift i i hope that wasn't a hint meaning we thought she was a meddler spelt in a very very different way it hadn't been a hint at all it had been a true gift from the medler tree here so we give thanks for the fruitfulness of the earth on this lovely september morning and wherever you are in the world with so many different concerns then uh perhaps i should say that that a couple of days ago i i mentioned charles v the holy roman emperor and you remember i said that he was the first of whom it could be said that the lands for which he was responsible which went right from the eastern most eastern part of europe and down onto the turf italy and all around there and then right over the atlantic over to the spanish possessions there on the west coast the first that could be said that his was an empire on which the sun never set well uh a german member of our uh garden congregation if she's if she's watching she'll know who she is uh wrote her an email to us saying have you ever thought that us all of us um as a garden congregation are truly an empire a kingdom of prayer on which the sun never sets well i thought that was a lovely concept so i share it with you today but it's a time of day when the sun is rising and probably by the end of our prayers it will have topped the ash tree and be shining down on the lawn and then giving rather a cold morning with its heavy dew a warmth which will rise from the the the lawns as with say our prayers so come now with your prayers and intentions as we begin morning prayer on this day oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night 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 does we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our son this morning on this 23rd morning of the month is psalm 111 alleluia i will give thanks to the lord with my whole heart in the company of the faithful and in the congregation the works of the lord are great sought out by all who delight in them his work is full of majesty and honor and his righteousness endures forever he appointed a memorial for his marvelous deeds the lord is gracious and full of compassion he gave food to those who feared him he is ever mindful of his covenant he showed his people the power of his works in giving them the heritage of the nations works of his hands are truth and justice all his commandments are sure they stand fast forever and ever they are done in truth and equity he sent redemption to his people he commanded his covenant forever holy and awesome is his name the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom a good understanding have those who live by it his praise endures forever so we turn to our story of joseph back in the book of genesis just where we left it yesterday and you will remember that joseph having given the brothers one last test to see the quality of their relationships with one another their willingness to give themselves with a certain amount of self-sacrifice to one another and their love for their father and their consideration of him and his love for benjamin as the only survivor of the two brothers that were born of his beloved wife rachel joseph whom jacob believes dead and so do all of they because they've no idea who it is that's talking to them and then benjamin whom they've brought down with great tenderness because his father fears that some harm may happen to him in egypt and here they are and joseph has now said that benjamin must remain as a servant because of the finding of the silver cup all part of the test of this fascinating story as it unfolds and the intuition with which joseph is looking at those brothers which he had known last 20 something years before when they had been violently disposed towards him and evil intended when they sell him to the traders sell him for money and then take back his torn and blooded coat to the father jacob so that jacob will believe his beloved son dead and all of that was a long time ago and now these brothers who already have an insight into the fact that how they were is now being visited on them in some way though they certainly don't know joseph and you remember that yesterday it was judah who stood forward and made that plea take me instead if we don't take benjamin home it will kill our father take me instead and we noted that it's of the tribe of judah in the genealogies of matthew and of luke of our lord's life and the royal line of david of all jacob's sons it's judah who is the one who is chosen to be the one who carries forward the line of david from which the christ will be born and give us the image of the divine in humanity living in human flesh all of that to come right here back in that the very earliest part of the books of the old covenant stretching forward to the books of the new covenant and the way in which that human line goes forward so let's continue from that moment where we have the um time that joseph is about to tell his brothers so the last sentence of judah is now therefore please let your servant remain instead of the boy benjamin as a servant to my lord let the boy go back with his brothers for how can i go back to my father if the boy is not with me i fear to see the evil that would find my father so chapter 45 verse 1 now then joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him he cried make everyone go out from me so no one stayed with him when joseph made himself known to his brothers and he wept aloud so that the egyptians heard it and the household of pharaoh heard it and joseph said to his brothers i am joseph is my father still alive but his brothers could not answer him for they were dismayed at his presence so joseph said to his brothers come near to me please and they came near and joseph said i am your brother joseph whom you sold into egypt and now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sowed me here for god sent me before you to preserve life for the famine has been in the land these two years and there are yet five years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest and god sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors so it was not you who sent me here but god he has made me a father to pharaoh and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of egypt hurry now and go up to my father and say to him thus says your son joseph god has made me lord of all egypt come down to me do not tarry you shall dwell in the land of goshen and you shall be near me you and your children and your children's children and your flocks your herds and all that you have and there i will provide for you for there are yet five years of famine to come so that you and your household and all that you have do not come to poverty and now your eyes see and the eyes of my brother benjamin see that it is my mouth that speaks to you you must tell my father of all my honor in egypt and all of that you have seen hurry and bring my father down here then joseph fell upon his brother benjamin's neck and wept and benjamin wept upon joseph's neck and then he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them and after that his brothers talked with him it's a touching and lovely scene joseph not only because of judah's words but because he has seen over and again the way in which the brothers are reacting to one another and also shows so much concern for their father jacob now like the meddler fruits will become in old age and great maturity but still with some fruitfulness left in terms of what he will do when he and all his household come down to be with joseph in egypt joseph himself has been intuitive about that but he has had cause to test them and see how their repentance has worked in their relationships with one another and their love and honor and respect for their father and now he can't carry this on any longer but he doesn't want the egyptians to see this this is an intimate family moment so the cry let everyone go from me and all his egyptian servants and all the shall we say paraphernalia of office disappears from the room the door is closed and only the 12 brothers are left 12 for the first time since joseph was put into the pit and sold to the traders and then and only then in that intimate moment of family does joseph make himself known and the reactions you can think of yourselves almost in that locked upper room when jesus stands before his disciples the react the reactions are at first nervously amazed because when jesus says peace be with you it takes a while for the disciples in the upper room the 11 or 10 at first because of course thomas isn't there but think of them as the 11 at that point just as the 11 brothers are standing there in front of joseph the amazement is filled with a a measure of nervous fear what will this person who says he is joseph their brother whom they treated in such a way over 20 years before what will this person do to them now all power is in his hands and they are totally at his mercy and that mercy turns out truly to be mercy full of compassion but more than that those tears which are going to be shed plentifully are tears of affection for he's been observing them he's even eaten with them and he's got to know his brother benjamin before benjamin ever realizes that this is his brother so that the scene that we have there is filled with a humanity which is so touching in the way that the story is told and all the again picking up the stitches from the past the storyteller is is profound in the way in which the story makes us wait and wait and wait and he's full of public life and majesty and the pharaoh and full of the desperate state of the famine back in canaan but jacob's resistance to benjamin got all of that and then there's the touching moment of judah offering himself as the one who will stay and joseph at that point finds the whole thing too much for him and makes himself known in the privacy of that room to his brothers and at first fear and then realization and then many tears and much forgiveness on the part of joseph but much more than that joseph's absolute conviction that all this given to him in pain and suffering and prophesied by the dreams he himself had had before ever he interprets the dreams which the cup bearer and the baker and then pharaoh has joseph is convinced that all this has happened by god's will and that he has himself been the servant of the living god in whom he believes and in whom he has put his trust and he says that to his brothers please don't fear it wasn't you that sent me into egypt despite your evil intentions at that time and your temptations for the silver from the the traders and also the the desperate plans you made to cover my death to our father back in canaan it wasn't you who sent me to egypt it was god i was sent as a forerunner to prepare the way that my father and the family will be preserved through those still five years of famine and i can provide for you and give my father and his whole community a home here in the land of goshen hurry now and go and get him all of those things and the shifting emotions partly internal in joseph partly external in the role he has and partly also internal within the company of the family in the closed room as these things are shared what a story and there's more yet to come but we've entered the heartland of this and we note as i've said the role that judah plays in that the one through whom the seed of abraham will be carried into the royal line of david and up to the anointed one who will bring a new covenant well this is a day um again always things have happened on the dates that we mentioned and september the 23rd let me mention first in 1592 michel de montaigne was died in in 1592 he was born in 1533 and he is known best for his essays now montane was an aristocrat who lived in a chateau uh bequeathed to him by his father and his his father and michelle de montaigne himself had certain duties in france at that time in public life his father had been a member of the parliament of bordeaux and the mayor of bordeaux and montaigne had the the same tasks to do but at the same time he yearned for reflective solitude and pondering on the life of the nation and the people around him that reflected solitude become became filled with his thoughts about himself and also about the humanity around him for with montane at that time something of the optimism of the renaissance was beginning to die away and all that optimism of those who could think clearly and and go forward and use all the learning that was opening up from the rediscovery of the classical writers and and everything that the renaissance in its creativity gave optimistically montane could not see in the desperate violent and bloody battles going on around him between protestants and catholics at that time in france and the way in which political figures used all that and his greatest desire was to withdraw and contemplate and he found time to do that though he forced himself also into public life and was mightily respected by kings of france uh and was used by him to try to get a balance or a reconciliation or a diplomatic solution from time to time but montaigne's real gift was in shall we say self-analysis and moving that self-analysis into an analysis of humankind and the things of which humankind was capable for good or for evil when he wrote his essays and let's think of the the word essays which means something which is almost an experiment something you try um i will essay to do that i'll try to do that i'll try to to go forward in that way in that thinking and as that as that happens he writes sets of essays which have become companions to so many thinkers and writers afterwards they're too many to mention but if one mentions people like russo or even john henry newman or t.s eliot or or virginia woolf all sorts of people who wanted to quarry within themselves and then set that out and montan's great image of that was an image of everyone in family or public life having rooms which were public rooms the front room facing onto the street and rooms which were private room the back room into which it was possible to withdraw we've seen that happen this morning in the story of joseph the public room where joseph has received his brothers sitting in state surrounded by all the the uh honor and glory of what he is in egypt the lord of all egypt and then the withdrawal not just by himself although he's done that on former occasions in this story he's gone into weep and and wash his face and then come out and restore his public image on this occasion though he wants to take all the 11 brothers into that confidence and that inner room which is partly an image of the inner room inside himself and partly an image of the actual layout of the house the doors are shut but montaigne uses it as an image of the necessity of all of us to withdraw and contemplate sometimes to withdraw with others to help that contemplation montane in early life had a great friend whom he kept letters going backwards and forwards with and at the same time trusted a great deal he died too young but montane's essays become that self-analysis of the need for public life and duty and also the need to feed that public life in its interaction so that you also feed the contemplation of humanity and also in self-analysis in the the back room montine montaigne was a faithful catholic and died as mass was being said around his bed in his sickness in the end in 1592 but at the same time he was a questioner someone who questioned everything and then would take those questions he went and again it wasn't to his taste really traveling and and mixing but he knew that in order to learn many things he had to travel and he traveled around europe but always was glad to come home and be there in the solitude and reflectiveness of that inner room within himself or actually physically at a point in the house well it's something we're doing morning by morning just withdrawing for a moment and contemplating but it's something that we all need to do some of us are more extrovert than others and therefore perhaps they need to tell themselves to withdraw and reflect some are more introvert than others and desire all the time to be in that reflective place but montaigne knew the balance and many of us who tend towards being introvert and both of us would fletcher and i would would both see ourselves from the myers-briggs test as being that have to act the extrovert role and tell ourselves to do so for the sake of the gifts that that we we have that we want to share being given out in that particular way so because of the nature of the two areas of life in that way the reflection and the interaction then the balance is achieved which montaigne in his essays so often describes i want also on this day to say but i'm not going into that area at all this was the day and in september the 23rd 1939 when sigmund freud the psychoanalyst died who who very much showed the internal and external parts but we could go into freud and jung and everyone but let's let's park that for today and let's go to a completely different person and go to wilkie collins the writer who died on september the 23rd 1889 and you want to mention one of his books and it's the books which so many writers afterwards have said is the best detective story ever written and in full measure the first and how was it written it was written almost as a series of letters of essays by different narrators if you know the story of the moonstone then you will know how it unfolds and the um the the heroine rachel verenda is never the narrator it passes through the narration a series of very unlikely characters some of them not too wholesome the most wholesome is the wonderful steward of the house gabriel betterage who starts the narration and who makes friends with the detective sergeant cuff who himself is a wonderful character but never is involved in the narration the next is drusilla clarke who was the poor cousin of rachel verrinder and not too well intentioned say that we're getting a quality that we have to be intuitive about of narration and then mr broth the family solicitor and that's a very different kind of narration and then ezra jennings now he is the family physician's assistant and again not too wholesome a person or a witness but telling that story going right through to the end and finally the epilogue by mr mercedes completely different characters with and those characters we have to assess in the way the story evolves and the puzzles is you it's the kind of book you wish you had the capacity for selective amnesia because to read it again not knowing any of the answers becomes a wonderful task the jigsaw of the internal the external and the gifts and creative activities of all of them and how the plot resolves in the end and um the the imaginations of god godfrey abel white who is a suitor for rachel verrinder but never a narrator on the way through that epistolary way of writing in sections became a favorite way of people putting things forward but at the same time the moonstone stands as a foundation stone not only of that way of writing but also of detective mysteries which become a whole genre on their own on the way through and then lastly on this day in 1835 the composer composer of opera mostly we know him vicenzo bellini was uh died at the age of early age of only 34 and we know him especially for operas like norma la son ambula iporitani and then that wonderful uh version of the romeo and juliet story in his opera about the capulets and the montagues but essentially we know him as someone who could write and verdi would wonder at this write the longest melodies for the high belcanto voice whether it be soprano or antenna soaring above in reflection in tragic circumstances one only has to hear we recently we had maria carlos singing something for us but to hear her sing uh the the parts in norma or to hear uh uh the the the way in in which juan diego flores sings those high rolls of bellini with longer melodies than practically anyone else achieves actually takes us right into the heart of passionate reflection inside of self-questioning and sometimes in duet form of two people questioning their motives questioning their intentions sifting through their temptations all of those set out in operatic form most magnificently by bellini of course that whole role of rossini and donizetti with the belcanto ren of course said that but bellini was the master of the long melody and the long reflection and as that is played out tragic heroines are are given you on the stage and heroes and heroines sometimes with motives that they're trying to push aside for the good of both of them or for the welfare of a public life and at the same time the weakness of humanity and also the things which with which humanity has to contend in in terms of the the the breaking up of the rational capacity of the mind as things go on and forward lots of things to think about now as the brightness of the sun rises on me over the ash tree and we come to say our prayers on this day we are praying in our anglican communion for the diocese of florida in the episcopal church of the united states of america [Applause] and in this diocese as we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and for tim bishop at lambeth who's coming very much to the end of his time as bishop at lambeth and is retiring though when we'll be immensely sad to lose his wise counsel after his his wonderful ministry but we shall lose him all together because he's staying on as a consultant uh with regard to the lambeth conference and so all of that will be magnificent um and then uh we are praying today in the diocese for the parish of sittinghurst of course the great home of vita sackville west the huge gardener there and trinity church there and frittenden nearby the church of saint mary and peter deeves in his ministry there and also the life of britain and church of england primary school and sissinghurst church of england primary school so we pray for those intentions but please bring your own intentions as we say the collect for the day o lord we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers of your people who call upon you and grant that we may both perceive and know what things we ought to do and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill them through jesus christ our lord amen so we say each in our own language the prayer our savior taught us 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 quiet reflection now for our own prayers 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] yes [Music] he's [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] is [Music] this [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] yes [Music] face [Music] [Music] oh [Music] me [Music] me [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey me [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] you