good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the 13th of august nice fine morning wherever you are in the world please feel welcome and this is the day when in our readings from the book of genesis we come to the story of the rainbow and uh you're looking at the moment at something that our little niece arabella made right at the beginning of lockdown which was a golden sunshine of smiles but below at that time the strings of paper were rainbow colored and we were asked to put rainbows in our windows to support the national health service and front line workers combating the pandemic and here it is now with the rainbow strings faded with the sunshine because it's been in the deanery kitchen windows since that moment looking outwards with the sunny smile and the strings of the rainbow showing the diversity of humanity combating this disease and also the courage of not only the national health service but all frontline workers we remember in our prayers today so many across the world that diversity of nations and we've got um leo here wearing a rainbow collar today uh which he is very proud of and is just settling down here beside us which is quite unusual for him he's quite an active cat i don't think he'll stay very long we are praying today for so many different areas of our world our diverse world for afghanistan caught up in terrible war with people fleeing from their homes and their cities and we're praying for algeria with three days of national mourning following not only those who lost their lives in the fire as their homes were burned but also those many of them soldiers who were combating the fire fighting the fire and who've lost their lives so in in great numbers people died in in algeria and we join the algerians as they have their three days of national mourning for those who have died in fire in north turkey and the the east of the mediterranean we've been talking about fires and still do so but in northern turkey now the danger has been added to by flash floods and people having to be helicoptered from their homes with floods and that will be the case also in north korea but we think of fires in the western parts of the united states and and of canada and so all of those things we keep in our minds at this particular time and we say our prayers together oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise visit us with your salvation and sustain us with your gracious spirit oh come let us sing to the lord let us heartily rejoice in the rock of our salvation let us come into his presence with thanksgiving and be glad in him with psalms for the lord is a great god and a great king above all gods come let us worship and bow down and kneel before the lord our maker for he is our god we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand 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 oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our son this morning is psalm 68 for the 13th morning of the month it's a long sound so we'll read some verses from that let god arise and let his enemies be scattered let those that hate him flee before him as the smoke vanishes so may they vanish away as wax melts at the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of god but let the righteous be glad and rejoice before god let them make merry with gladness sing to god sing praises to his name exalt him who rides upon the clouds the lord is his name rejoice before him father of the fatherless defender of widows god in his holy habitation god gives the solitary a home and brings forth prisoners to songs of welcome but the rebellious inhabit a burning desert oh god when you went forth before your people when you marched through the wilderness the earth shook and the heavens dropped down rain at the presence of god the lord of sinai at the presence of god the god of israel you sent down a gracious reign o god you refreshed your inheritance when it was weary your people came to dwell there in your goodness so god you provide for the poor blessed be the lord who bears our burdens day by day for god is our salvation god is for us the god of our salvation god is the lord who can deliver from death sing to god you kingdoms of the world make music in praise of the lord he rides on the ancient heaven of heavens and sends forth his voice a mighty voice ascribe power to god whose splendor is over israel whose power is above the clouds how terrible is god in his holy sanctuary the god of israel who gives power and strength to his people blessed be god so we turn then to the book of genesis and we continue the story of noah having left the ark there on mount ararat with all its doors now open and a new fresh earth washed clean so to speak for a new beginning by the hand of the creator i'm in chapter 9 and beginning at verse 1. and god blessed noah and his sons and said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea into your hand they are delivered every moving thing that lives shall be food for you and as i gave you the green plants i give you everything but you shall not eat flesh with its life that is its blood and for your lifeblood i will require a reckoning from every beast i will require it and from man from his fellow man i will require a reckoning for the life of humankind whoever sheds the blood of humankind by humankind shall their blood be shed for god made humankind in his own image and you be fruitful and multiply increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it then god said to noah unto his sons with him behold i establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you and with every living creature that is with you the birds the livestock every animal of the earth with you as many as came out of the ark it is for every animal and creature of the earth i establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth and god said this is the sign of the covenant that i make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future debt generations i have set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth when i bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds i will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh when the bow is in the clouds i will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between god and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth god said to noah this is the sign of the covenant that i have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth well true enough there's no more wonderful sight than a perfect rainbow against dark blue clouds of deep uh rain and the sun shining from one direction onto the clouds and creating the rainbow of the the colors through the rain it's speaking of diversity and many organizations have actually adopted the rainbow as a sign of the diversity of humanity and the welfare of the stewardship of the planet that is given to us as humankind and notice from the beginning in that covenant this is a covenant as we said yesterday which predates anything given to the covenant of one particular people this is in the uh storytellers mind and then the writer's mind as this is shaped together into the book of genesis into these 11 chapters of what we've called prime evil history so so far back and told in so many different ways and what we have there is a sense of the diversity of all humankind and for that we give great thanks because the diversity of cultures is something which the creator blesses by this particular covenant and the colors of the rainbows that even the flowers of the herbaceous border remind us of the colors of the rainbow this morning not only leo's collar but all these beautiful flowers and amongst them the poppy heads reminding us of that seed pod of the ark waiting to shake their precious seeds as the wind blows their flowering period long over but those little pods of life which will give seed onto the earth below and flower again all these things talking about the diversity of creatures and the diversity of of birds and fish and everything that has the breath of life in it but also of plant life and the way in which we look after this planet for those words saying everything shall be in dread of you are really rightly said at the moment because even the planet itself as we well know is threatened by human activity in so many different ways and our responsibility for stewardship becomes more and more important so all of those things this morning as we consider the glorious feature which only comes from time to time with the bow in the clouds let's go back yesterday we were talking about uh benjamin britain's opera let me return to the wonderful children's opera which was written for participation by those who love to sing not trained professional singers but those who love to sing stiffened by a little um company of professional singers to give confidence and what i wanted to return to was the michael flanders and joseph horowitz children's cantata almost but it could be done with activity captain noah and his floating zoo there's a wonderful video of the bach choir doing this with children from all kinds of schools from the area and the audience being asked to join in as well because the songs are very easy to sing but one of the best songs of all is the song of the rainbow at the end is that was that i wanted to turn to but you'll remember if you know this then generally it's accompanied by a jazz trio a piano and a bass and percussion and that's enough because the rhythm is wonderful and the piano gives the the the flavor of all that's going on but people join in with gusto as it goes on and there are choruses rather like the beginning of the rain uh when the children get faster and faster going to make it rain and rain and rain and rain and rain and rain well that comes back and the last song continues that it goes faster faster faster and all the audience joining in and it starts gently and with wonder i've got the words here but the tune i'll give a sense or if you don't know it just just um google it or something because it is so beautiful it's just simply called the rainbow and it runs oh what a wonderful scene the rainbow overhead violet indigo blue and green yellow orange and red this is my promise to you the rainbow overhead violet indigo blue and so on and those colors which are just representative of total diversity but when the song goes on and uh you get to the sense of and the words go you'll see the rainbow in the sky you'll know god's words are true go forth increase and multiply dignified music and then quite slowly by two by two by two by and it gets faster by two by two by two and the percussion is going and the piano is going and the signals are going and the audience is going and everyone is praising not only the rainbow the gift of god but the diversity of humankind and also the responsibility of stewardship for the diverse and wonderful life of our planet all of that as the rainbow looks down this is not over the rainbow somewhere over the rainbow this is life under the rainbow and the same glories are absolutely apparent because we can discover the diversity of ways in which humankind is given the good news of the gospel that wonderful rainbow and the dove of reconciliation and peace there's a moment at the end of andre obey's play which we were talking about noah where the um sons and daughters of noah go off and noah has no great hope for their good behavior as he goes away and uh he looks up to heaven and raises his old hands and shouts to the heavens are you satisfied are you satisfied and noah is facing the audience and behind noah across the stage in wondrous colors the rainbow breaks out above him it's a very moving moment in the play and the one who's not seeing the rainbow at that moment is noah but what is involved here so much more is god's own involvement with humanity in the beginning there was a perfect picture chapter one and god saw all that he'd created it was very good now with the way in which humankind has developed and and and there's a realism comes into this and god becomes involved in a way that you begin to have dialogue in different ways in difficult situations and as we move on there's one more story tomorrow in chapter 11 of the primeval history but as we move on to chapter 12 and 13 and on it becomes a very different kind of history an ancestral history of jesus's own people and that is very different and we find god involved and that involvement of course becomes the involvement in our own humanity as well the word made flesh whom we thought of yesterday coming up out of the waters and the dove a lighting on him just as the dove came in the story yesterday with the olive branch of the covenant between god and all of created life but particularly humanity with its stewardship this is a day on uh august the 13th 1896 when sir john everett milay the artist the pre-raphaelite artist died i wanted to remember him because of course he painted that wonderful painting which i think is in the ashmolean museum in oxford i know it well from having seen it so many times and it's called the return of the dove to the ark and it's not as you might expect noah putting his hand out and receiving the dove back in not at all it's two of noah's daughters-in-law very young and one is tenderly holding the dove and the other has in her hand the olive branch and the dove is sitting quite gently and there's a scene of huge affection of the two girls with the dove the dove is an easy creature to engender affection like that but the olive branch is speaking of the care that humanity has to have over all life and also there's clearly affection between the two girls as well there in the seed pod of the ark with god's promise of a covenant of of peace and the the olive we remember millions of olive leaves gathered around jesus at his moment when he knows in our human flesh what the cost of god's new covenant will be kneeling in gethsemane in melee's one picture one olive leaf held tenderly with christ wrestling with the limitation of his own humanity which are exactly the same as ours but knowing that he must drink the cup which the creator has offered in order that the new covenant the new promise may be offered to all humanity by his lifting up melee was a a wonderful uh painter and at the time even charles dickens complained desperately about the next painting i'm going to mention and it's simply called christ in the house of his parents and that's in tate britain and if you know that painting then it's not a sort of romantic painting really it it shows the starkness of the carpenter's shop but milay puts signs everywhere joseph working with one of his workers at creating a door and jesus has as a little boy hurt his hand on a nail and got it in in to his hand and his granny um cindan has got the pincers there that she's removed the the nail there and mary full of uh solicitous love for her child uh is is is there with him and jesus is kissing his mother's cheek at that and joseph is leaning over from his bench and holding the hand to look at it to see it's not too badly damaged but around our other signs another boy of jesus's age who is clearly a sign of john the baptist is coming with a bowl of water to wash the wound and the sign of baptism is all too too evident and then in the against the wall is a ladder speaking of jacob's ladder but on the top rung a dove speaking of the holy spirit and the gift given of reconciliation through the spirit not as i say over the rainbow but down here in life under the rainbow and through the door the open door you'll see a flock of sheep outside and clearly the the door lying being made is an emblem of the i am not only the good shepherd but the door of the sheepfold and the other worker watching everything is thought to be an emblem of the apostles who are called from their work benches and their fishing nets to carry that message under the rainbow to the whole of humanity rich with imagery this morning and we are going to say our prayers giving thanks for all of that so as we pray this morning in the anglican communion we pray for justin our archbishop and we pray for the diocese of durham in the northern province of of the church of england and the life of that diocese and here in this diocese we're continuing to pray for the parishes of the north irons benefits and we pray for the second half of that today the parishes of bastard broomfield kingswood langley leeds and autumn and we remember mark pavey in his ministry so bring your own prayers and intentions as we say our prayers together on this friday the 13th of august let your merciful ears o lords be open to the prayers of your humble servants and that they may obtain their petitions make them to ask such things that shall please you through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language we say the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy 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 for your own prayers so so 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 well you're very quiet today in your rainbow collar you must have had a bit of a busy night i think don't know where you've been but i think you're in for a sleepy day aren't you it's not too cold for you out here ah there we are a little bit of washing always helps a doze which follows he's keeping one eye open for tiger just in case tiger come and comes and steals the show you