good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the 3rd of september as we gather to say our morning prayers we are sitting in the front of the deanery this morning because our genesis lesson begins to show the birth of the sons of jacob who are the foundation of the children of israel which will think about all of that in our reflection but we've come really to stones which formed the foundation of this house of hospitality the deanery and the priory before and now this great medieval tower here and at the base great stones that have stood here for centuries and which used to connect it right across to the what is now the canon librarian's house and the old entry to the priory and earlier on to the deanery on to the green court and so these stones are reminding us that every moment of growth needs either firm roots firm foundation and that foundation of the twelve tribes begins to evolve in our reflections about jacob today but i'm sitting here surrounded by lovely flowers um the mermaid rose is above me and above me also the wonderfully strong and tall magnolia grandiflora there's another on the other side of the little pass here with the box bushes around us it's a it's a lovely morning with blue sky showing on a september sky and uh no real wind the work of the precincts is is going ahead and you may hear sounds of that because the school is about to return and the work of the autumn the fall will begin and so if you hear sounds there's a workman either working on the cathedral and keeping the place uh well carved and with good stones or is people working and mowing the lawns and getting ready for the school houses to come back together so let's begin our prayers on this particular morning and we keep in our mind all those areas of the world where people are fleeing from their homes through flood or fire or having to be rescued from their homes or have lost their homes and we remember scenes of earthquake and we don't forget also scenes of pandemic where people are locked in but when we think of the fragility of our human life and how suddenly peaceful times can change to times of danger this morning we have that image of the supermarket in auckland where suddenly i think six or seven people have been stabbed by a knife man who was too quick for the security services who acted very promptly but that peaceful scene in auckland became a scene of terror in no time at all and others had to put their lives in danger to to to stop all this happening that will be happening right across the world in health terms and in terms of physical danger for people offering their own lives to help others so let's give thanks for that as we say our prayers on this morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your faithful servants bless you they make known the glory of your kingdom blessed are you sovereign god ruler and judge of all to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of this age that is passing away may the light of your presence which the saints enjoy surround our steps as we journey on may we reflect your glory this day and so be made ready to see your face in the heavenly city where night shall be no more blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night is past 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 this day is a special day for canterbury in our calendar it's the feast day of pope gregory the great who was made pope the first pope from a monastic background on this september the third in the year 590 crucial for us in canterbury because he of course was the one who had the vision to send the gregorian mission here to the anglo-saxon people who had come to take over this land um and the the the residents who were here before had been forced over to the west but the anglia saxons came as pagans and gregory had the vision that he would send a mission to bring christianity once again to this land and so we give great thanks on this day for a special feast day of st gregory the great we shall think about him in our reflection too but it's also another foundation stone in the way in which our cathedral church was founded by the vision of gregory our psalms on this particular morning of the month us is well the the psalms are 15 16 17 this afternoon 18 and together those fourth arms for my favorite day of the month in terms of salmadi they're not necessarily my favorite psalms but as a collection i look forward to the third morning of the month i'm going to read psalms 16. preserve me o lord for in you have i taken refuge i have said to the lord you are my lord all my good depends on you all my delight is upon the godly that are in the land upon those who are noble in heart though the idols are legion that many run after their drink offerings of blood i will not offer neither make mention of their names upon my lips the lord himself is my portion and my cup in your hands alone is my fortune my share has fallen in a fair land indeed i have a goodly heritage i will bless the lord who has given me counsel and in the night watches he instructs my heart i have set the lord always before me he is at my right hand i shall not fall wherefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices my flesh also shall rest secure for you will not abandon my soul to death nor suffer your faithful one to see the pit you will show me the path of life in your presence is the fullness of joy and in your right hand our pleasures forevermore so we turn to the 29th chapter of the book genesis and take up from where we left off yesterday and that was jacob's huge love for rachel so that as the verse before said jacob served seven years for his working for his uncle to earn his bride who he loved so much seven years for rachel and the years seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her so i'm going on from verse 21 of chapter 29 of the book of genesis then jacob said to lay ban give me my wife that i may go into her before my time is completed so laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast but in the evening he took his daughter leia and brought her to jacob and jacob went into her laban gave his female servant zilpah to his daughter leia to be her servant and in the morning behold it was leia and jacob said to layman what is this you have done to me did i not serve with you for rachel why then have you deceived me laban said it is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn complete the week of this one and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years jacob did so and completed her week then layman gave him his daughter rachel to be his wife also layman gave his female servant bilhah to his daughter rachel to be her servant so jacob went into rachel also and he loved rachel more than leia and served laban for another seven years when the lord saw that leia was hated he opened her womb but rachel was barren and leia conceived and bore a son and she called his name ruben for she said because the lord has looked upon my affliction for now my husband will love me she conceived again and bore a son and said because the lord has heard that i am hated he has given me this son also and she called his name simeon again she conceived and bore a son and said now this time my husband will be attached to me because i have borne him three sons therefore his name was called levi and she conceived again and bore a son and said this time i will praise the lord therefore she called his name judah and then she ceased bearing what we are seeing in that society where two wives are added to jacob together with their maidservants from whom also he will have children in that society we see building up the 12 sons of jacob who will become the foundation of the children of israel and that's a term we know well though jacob is not yet called israel there is this habit and custom almost and certainly intention of the lord as when a name is given at baptism so when a new vocation is given to someone there's a name change and in that way jesus himself does the same with simon whom he calls pizza it happens to with saul who becomes paul when he is realized as an apostle and in the old testament you remember with the patriarchs abram became abraham when he was obedient to the promise of god and his own vocation as the father of many nations sarai became sarah jacob will become israel hence the 12 sons of israel the children of israel and they are the foundation of the holy people into which our lord was born of the tribe of judah the fourth son of leia for god chooses and you can look at the genealogies in matthew in chapter one and in luke in chapter three and you will see how god choses chooses the the most surprising people to carry the genealogical line forward they're not always the same as those he chooses to fulfill a really important prophetic task or task which will change the course of the history of the chosen people in their vocation to be a blessing to every nation across the world and our lord himself born of the royal line of david is born of the line of judah the fourth son it's only when one gets to the end of the long list of sons that we come to joseph and benjamin rachel's sons sons of the one whom jacob loved most but the ones of significance in the life of the holy people including levi of course the third son from whom all the levitical priesthood and levites come all of that is part of god's plan in a different way always surprising always with those people who in human terms might not seem to have the right gifts but who are we to judge we mentioned the story of samuel with the sons of jesse and jesse bringing proudly his sons from the eldest all the way down and then samuel saying is there anyone else none of these seem to fit the bill and she says well there is one other young man out with the sheep but what does that matter and it's david who's called the least likely all of those things are part of god's message in surprising us but also working from different material humanity looks with the eyes but the lord looks on the heart samuel says that the lord looks on the heart and all of that becomes important in the way these things go forward different vocations different tasks but the multitude of genealogies which appear in this part of genesis which we've no intention of reading but we will eventually come as the story of joseph begins we shall come to the twelve sons and reuben the eldest plays a great part in that story of joseph and his rather belated and if you like timid courage with regard to his brother becomes crucial in the story of joseph and the ongoing story of the vocation of the children of israel to be a blessing to all nations [Music] so on this morning we give thanks for that we also notice that the cleverness of laban with jacob is also being used in a particular way jacob himself had been rather clever and trixie with the help of rebecca his mother in the way in which he took his brother's birthright these very human stories and human failings and human pieces of deceit are taken and used by god the disciples and the council in jerusalem are very suspicious of saul who became paul when first he was presented to them for he had been the murderer of their brothers and sisters and yet here he was being used as a chosen vessel by god these things become almost commonplace in the middle of all that we are doing um in studying the scriptures which becomes an important part of all that we're doing well let's look at some dates from today let's remember i'm hearing the mowers going on the green court there take take no notice of that this is a working day and so we're we've got noise around us today um let's think of those 12 foundation stones of the earliest of the tribes of israel and then the way in which our lord takes that number 12 out of the ones that he chooses in his own people the 12 and then at the same time how in the vocation of that people when the first feeding of the 5000 takes place [Music] what you have are 12 baskets of fragments for the ministry of the 12 amongst the holy people but the second time when it's the sign of the whole world being fed it's the seven baskets that are taken over which is an interesting exercise in how things go so as we go this is this is uh this is the new sweeper that the school has for sweeping the paths so i'll speak a bit louder so that you can hear me um as we go along we find that those 12 become symbols of everything that is going on and the symbol of all that is of course in the book of revelation with the holy city and the holy city itself with its 12 gates a pearl each portal foundation stones and gates well we've had a pause when i've just been across to talk to the gardening team because the noise of modern implements leaves used to be swept up with brooms quite softly and now everything that's being done to make everything smart for the school to come back reminds us of the silence that we enjoyed during the lockdown and began to take for granted and now the noise of traffic and machinery and everything else means that coming out of the lockdown is somehow more difficult than going into it in the beginning and there are tensions that arise from people who are finding that the pressures and noise of life as it begins to awaken again are intensely trying after months of quite silent world around them so all these tensions to our humanity and pressures of the way in which go forward we are learning and learning to be humankind again as we step out of lockdown in ways that we'd forgotten so here we are again with our story and i was going to say that on this date in 590 pope st gregory the great was made pope having come from a monastic tradition he had been brought up in an aristocratic family his father was a senator of rome and augustine and gregory himself by the age of 30 was a prefect in rome but then when his father died he took monastic orders and created of his very substantial family house on the chalian hill a monastery of saint andrew and gathered monks around him and became the prior there he was a great teacher and preacher and scholar and the monastery is still there and we've visited that and i had the privilege of celebrating the mass at the altar there which had been part of of gregory's family home and the lovely chair of the family made of marble is still there by the the altar but gregory had a vision that the christian gospel could be brought back to the pagan anglo-saxons who had taken over this land following the withdrawal of the roman forces and so just before 590 he had had an incident when walking through rome in a slave market he'd seen some children with very fair hair and asked where they were from and the slave master said uh they are from the um land of the angles and so he he said that they were angry and uh the legend is that that sin gregory said they're not angles they're angels known anglia said angeli and looking at them he made a vow to to bring christianity when he heard they were a pagan land that he he made a vow to to go and himself take the gospel that there used to be a a history book a rather amusing history book which which uh was was taking history with a light touch through and that sentence known angli said angeli it was said that the pope had said that they weren't uh angels but anglicans and so so uh that that uh we always used to smile at but but certainly the intention and the vision of gregory was to go himself so he set off with a group of his monks and on the fourth day of their travels as the story goes he stopped at midday in the heat both to say the midday office and then to take bread and rest a little while and as he was reading from his latin office book a locust sat on the pages and the servant next door to him said lo custer meaning it's a locus and what gregory heard was locus star stay in this place and he took that as a sign which was then interpreted in two ways an hour later a messenger came from rome to them and said you must come back and he went back to be made and elected as pope so from that moment he could not go to england so he chose one of his monks and not the most obvious it was the prior of the monastery and his name was augustine but augustine was quite a timid person and he set off with the monks with the blessing of gregory but on his journey he lost heart and sent a message of a sort of do i really have to do this kind and gregory at that point as a moment of encouragement took beautifully illustrated gospels and gave them to someone to take to augustine as a gift to the angles to whom he was going and at that point he also encouraged augustine with the gift so in two ways the gospels which we still have they reside at uh corpus christi college cambridge but are brought here the last time i held them was uh for the primates conference which took place here but i've held them now twice for the uh for the installation and enthronement of an archbishop because the archbishop takes his oath on those beautifully illustrated gospels which have been carbon tested to be shown from tuscany in the mid 6th century and they are in fine fine condition and that lovely gift is still precious and at that time too the the the promise conference the uh the pope sent the crozier head of saint gregory from rome and then it was sent back afterwards but as a sign of encouragement now and we remember the two things being together from gregory's monastery and house for the first time for goodness sake how long through and at that point um augustine came here now augustine's story is a different one but gregory still we think of as the one who had the imagination and vision and almost command by his experience in the slave market to send augustine and therefore we think of gregory in a way as our patron and perhaps i should say that he also is the patron saint not only of scholars and teachers so so much of his writing survives hundreds of letters and his sermons his dialogues his his his thinking about various books of the bible his his reflections on those but at the same time he was a great musician and liturgist and ordered the liturgy and so his name is attached to the plain song singing gregorian chant and that too gives us the feeling that gregory is still watching over us because the canterbury clock i've said this i think quite recently and it's about to start chiming again it's been under restoration and the west towers where it's housed are now um completing their restoration so the clock will be there and the bells will start to chime again not a westminster chime like big ben but a gregorian chant in its quarters the first quarter of the chant at quarter past the second at half past or two together by then then at three quarters three quarters of the chant chimed and at the hour the whole gregorian chant before the hour strikes and that kind of chant da rings out over the city telling the hours but speaking of our obedience to the regular reading of the psalms or the singing of the psalms and the hours of the day in prayer as well as work and rest and study and all the other things which gregory had for his community so we give great thanks for pope gregory and on this particular day also in 1939 the second world war began at 11 o'clock in the morning of sunday the 3rd of september the prime minister neville chamberlain who had given up at last on appeasing tyrannical dictators whose word could not be trusted paid heed to the alliance that england and france had with poland and declared war on germany it was a heartbreaking disappointment for him because he had tried to strive for peace but he made that announcement on what my parents would have called the wireless at 11 o'clock on that sunday morning and at one minute to 11 there was peace and one minute past 11 there was war and the nation must have been feeling very frightened as that huge conflict which gathered in so many nations into a war and lasted so many years and cost so many lives and reshaped the world all those things began on this day in 1939 and this place too was blitzed in a enormous raid a bomb that had already fallen just behind me here and exploded in front of the deanery and blown in the house here that the dean continued to live here but that was in 1940 in 1942 bombs rained down on this place and destroyed so much now there was a a young woman who when i came here was an elderly lady in a a a retirement home called lois lang sims she was a great writer and a great thinker herself but she was a teenager at the time clutching on to her mother under the stairs with a makeshift thinking that that would protect them if a bomb hit it certainly wouldn't have done but she was just beyond the west towers and as she clutched her mother there every explosion and the flickering fire light that was coming through the cracks in the door of the the the little cupboard they were hiding in under the stairway was showing that massive destruction was being done and lots of life was going on all around but she also felt that every explosion meant that the cathedral had been destroyed and then the clock would strike and she said it was the most beautiful sound in the middle of all that sense of war and at that point she also wrote in her diary the clock is praying for us when we're too frightened to pray for ourselves it reminds me of of uh letters that used to come from afghanistan from soldiers serving there from this nation who were became part of our garden congregation and one of those letters said the the prayers of the garden congregation were a different kind of music from the sound and explosions around me outside so situations of war and danger we remember on this day and give thanks for our peaceful uh state here but we think of people in very different states in different parts of the world so let's give thanks for st gregory the great and what he means to this place and his obedience to the call of god and his confidence in augustine the most unlikely person to bring the gospel here with all his shyness and timidity and yet this place is a testament to the fact that he did brought the gospel physically and also in his own person so let's say our prayers on this particular day and we're praying on this third of september in the anglican communion for the diocese of port elizabeth in the anglican church of southern africa now fletcher has family in port elizabeth and they are daily members of our garden congregation so we remember them and at the same time we pray for justin our archbishop who is here with us at the moment uh and uh then also we pray for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and today for the parish of saint peter and saint paul borden and for robert lane the priest sarah and his people soon after i came here and at that time howard such was the priest there at borden and he invited me on the about the second year i was here to come out and preach on saint peter and sin paul's feast the 29th of june and i went out there to do that and found two young men serving me who were howard's sons and later on both of them peter and david became verges here and they uh and in fact peter still lives here with his family but both peter and david went on from their life as verges to be in the health service in different ways and and and serving people's physical health and their career goes on so we give thanks for them and the different roles that people can play day by day and i also note that peter and paul at borden both of them had a change of name peter and paul so peter from simon paul from saul and that fits in so well with what we were saying about when someone takes a new vocation jacob becomes israel and uh saul becomes paul so there we are the most surprising vessels for god's activity uh so then we are going to say together the prayer for sin gregory's day bring your prayers and intentions and those who are on your heart today wherever you are in the world merciful father who chose your bishop gregory to be a servant of the servants of god grant that like him we may ever long to serve you by proclaiming your gospel to the nations and may ever rejoice to sing your praises through jesus christ our lord amen so in whatever language you like to use and right across the world we say 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 are men moment of silence now for our own prayers so so so uh so 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 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