good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the 8th of october we're sitting in the back courtyard here under the leaves which are beginning to turn now the many leaves that you've seen in flower over the last weeks the roses and the passion flowers still a few flowers on the passion flower the maple leaves are beginning now now to show some autumn color and it's very much an autumn day as we sit here under the leafy also of clementis so welcome wherever you are and bring your own concerns to our prayers on this damp gray morning it's it's still it's not too cold but it is very damp in the air this morning and we remember with thanksgiving the news of a malaria vaccine which has been discovered which will be an absolute godsend to those who live in countries where malaria is rife and we pray that this is an effective vaccine which it seems to be so that's very good news at the same time i'm talking about a damp morning here whereas the nation of brazil is having the most catastrophic drought at present and that drought excuse me it's calling causing sand storms which have proved fatal to some so we think of all our friends in brazil uh especially perhaps fletcher and i would mention paula a member of our garden congregation who's written to us recently and she's just suffered the loss of her beloved cat miu and described that miu seemed to suffer from the same complaint that our beloved cat monkey died from back in february and we know just how heartfelt your grief will be mir paula at the death of mew so we send our sympathy this morning to you in brazil the same time some other good news this time about booksellers i think a lot of book sellers particularly small booksellers in bookshops felt that the pandemic would be the end of their business but what we find from reports that and very detailed reports which have just been given is that people are buying more books and people like to go to book shops and look around at books on the table because suggestions are given to them which they knew nothing about and sometimes it's the cover of the book or something about the description as they pick it up and just simply wandering and exploring books so it doesn't surprise us that booksellers are doing well at this time but we hope that that rise continues as the the weeks go on and then also one last piece of wonderful news which you would have seen that majesty the queen has set off on its uh 294 day journey of 140 000 kilometers with 7 500 baton bearers the baton which will travel through all the 72 nations of the commonwealth and that baton now will go to explore and give testament to the unity between those unique cultures there'll be much sharing of stories now the baton itself is as no other baton has ever been it's been created in the west midlands by designers and technologists fusing science technology engineering and art it contains not only the pocket for the queen's message to the commonwealth but also a 360 degree camera which is able to transmit stories and receive stories and it's made of a multitude of different materials including a platinum which is of course a sign of the queen's own platinum jubilee which comes next year so let's give thanks for that sign of the unity between the nations which the baton bearers the 7500 who will carry that bat on through the nations of the commonwealth will hold and bring nation by nation through those 294 days the baton also contains something like lungs which can monitor the atmosphere and the the quality of the atmosphere and air wherever it is uh it seems to me like magic but all these things are in the technology of the battle and yet it has the most beautiful design so god bless every baton bearer as they stress the unity between cultures but also the difference of cultures that different stories are heard and transmitted across the world let's begin our prayers this morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise send your holy spirit upon us and clothe us with power from on high blessed are you creator god to you be praise and glory forever as your spirit moved over the face of the waters bringing light and life to your creation pour out your spirit on us today that we may walk as children of light and by your grace reveal your presence 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 psalm on this eighth morning of the month is psalm 40 i waited patiently for the lord he inclined to me and heard my cry he brought me out of the roaring pit out of the mire and clay he set my feet upon a rock and made my footing sure he has put a new song in my mouth a song of praise to our god many shall see and fear and put their trust in the lord blessed is the one who trusts in the lord who does not turn to the proud that follow a lie great are the wonders you have done o lord my god how great your designs for us there is none that can be compared with you if i were to proclaim them and tell of them they would be more than i am able to express sacrifice and offering you do not desire but my ears you have opened burnt offering and sacrifice for sin you have not required then said i lo i come in the scroll of the book it is written of me that i should do your will oh my god i delight to do it your law is within my heart i have declared your righteousness in the great congregation behold i did not restrain my lips and that o lord you know your righteousness i have not hidden in my heart i have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation i have not concealed your loving kindness and truth from the great congregation do not withhold your compassion from me o lord let your love and your faithfulness always preserve me for innumerable troubles have come about me my sins have overtaken me so that i cannot look up they are more in number than the hairs of my head and my heart fails me be pleased o lord to deliver me o lord make haste to help me let them be ashamed and altogether dismayed who seek after my life to destroy it let them be driven back and be put to shame who wish me evil let those who heap insults upon me be desolate because of their shame but let all who seek you rejoice and be glad let those who love your salvation say always the lord is great though i am poor and needy the lord cares for me you are my helper and my deliverer oh my god make no delay it's a psalm of petition that has some lovely sentences in it i'm reading from the book of exodus taking up from where we left off in chapter 2 and from verse 11. one day when moses had grown up he went out to his people and looked on their burdens and he saw an egyptian beating a hebrew one of his people moses looked this way in that and seeing no one he struck down the egyptian and hid him in the sand then he went out the next day and behold two hebrews were struggling together and he said to the man in the wrong why do you strike your companion and the man said who made you a prince and a judge over asked do you mean to kill me as you killed the egyptian then moses was afraid and thought surely this thing is known when pharaoh heard of it he sought to kill moses but moses fled from pharaoh and stayed in the land of midian and he sat down by a well now the priest of midian had seven daughters and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock the shepherds came and drove them away but moses stood up and saved the girls and watered their flock when they came home to their father the rule he said how is it that you have come home so soon today they said an egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock he said to his daughters then where is he why have you left the man call him that he may eat bread with us and moses was content to dwell with the man and he gave moses his daughter zipara she gave birth to a son and he called his name gershom four moses said i have been a sojourner in a foreign land during those many days the king of egypt died and the people of israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help their cry for rescue from slavery came up to god and god heard their groaning and god remembered his covenant with abraham with isaac and with jacob god saw the people of israel and god knew moses in a quick sentence between yesterday and today has grown up but he's grown up as an honorary son of the pharaoh's daughter an egyptian prince he's been given everything that the court in egypt of the pharaoh could give him and has been loved by the pharaoh's daughter and made her son in a real way and yet when we come to this part of chapter two we realize at once that moses knows that although he is dressed as an egyptian prince and has been brought up as an egyptian prince nevertheless deep within himself he knows that he is a hebrew and the sentences talk about his own people this is a lesson about true identity and moses true identity in his heart and mind and body is not that of an egyptian prince but that of one of the hebrews who are enslaved how much he must have struggled with that and we know that the story of moses is going to take us right through the early books of the old covenant to take us on to mount sinai and then right through the consciousness of the old covenant and into the new covenant our lord himself constantly mentions moses as one of the foundation stones of everything in which he was brought up and often interprets moses for us in the right way but here is moses in early days struggling struggling with his own vocation which at the moment he has no idea what it's about but he's a human being and has passions and on this occasion seeing an egyptian beating one of the hebrews he strikes the man the egyptian so hard that he kills him and then he's terrified and buries the body in the sand thinking no one knows that people do know and when he goes out the next day and tries to stop two of the hebrews from fighting against each other when their real danger is from those who've enslaved them they turn on him and said who's given you authority is you may dress like an egyptian prince who's given you authority over us are you going to kill me as you killed the egyptian and then instantly fear and terror comes over moses if this matter is known then the pharaoh will seek to kill him for he will realize exactly what moses has done as one of the enslaved hebrews not as an egyptian prince so moses runs away runs away to save his life but runs away also from the struggle within himself between his egyptian upbringing and also his hebrew consciousness so he goes to neutral territory in the land of midian and here we have another story based around a well it's amazing how water in the middle of the desert draws animals and people to the place of refreshment he sits down by a well and a group of young women come with their father's flock rules flock and they're harshly treated by the shepherds who want to water their own sheep and so moses champions the girls and they see him as they say to their father as an egyptian but they're in the land of midian and moses has run far from the two nations that he feels kinship with but heart mind and soul he knows that he's a hebrew he's run away and now what happens is a temptation to stay in that neutral territory come and share our bread he's shed their well and refreshed himself with the water and now he's asked to share their bread and he marries a wife and has a son we're covering some years there are years of escape and as far as moses is concerned they are the way in which he wants to live his life permanently but meanwhile back in egypt the enslaved nation of the israelites are crying out to god and in the last few verses god hears their cry so many of the psalms cry out from different situations to god and here god hears their cry and remembers his covenant with abraham with isaac with jacob remembers that's not said but remembers the activity which brought joseph to egypt and the children of israel to egypt and now activity will go on but first the person who will go for him has to be named and identified and called and we shall see tomorrow that that lot falls on moses his quiet escape from his own vocation is about to be interrupted and we can think about that when god places the vocation in front of him again in a very strange way and a very strange place but that's tomorrow's story today's story is the way in which identity is something which is often deep within us coming from as rupert brooke would say otherwise unbidden and here is moses struggling with his own identity and choosing in the end because it's too difficult and raises too many passions choosing in the end to run away and escape it and think fine that's settled i can now live a life of tranquility in this place and be useful here well let's think of some things today how um this date in the past has meant uh something important i'm going to go in sort of reverse orders really today because i want to on this date wish the english politician betty boothroyd um a happy birthday she was born on the 8th of october 1929 so that makes her 92 today i said english a british politician she was the speaker of the house of commons between 1992 and the year 2000 having been a member of parliament for west bromwich and then west bromwich west between 1973 and the year 2000s and she is a highly highly respected politician a person of great wisdom when she resigned as speaker of the house of commons the first woman to be speaker of the house of commons an immensely important role in the british political and parliamentary system she was given a life period and now sits in the house of lords so that her wisdom can still be given in the parliament of the nation and we give thanks for her and give thanks for the role that she carved in politics so that now she's regarded simply as a very very senior politician and we've got several dates where people were regarded in a particular way and sometimes um should we say uh um hindered by the fact that people kept saying this is the first woman to do this or this is a woman this or that and now thank god that way of describing things is dying away but there are two other dates that i want to talk to you about this morning um one is of the novelist edith somerville who died on the 8th of october 1949 and she died at the age of 91. and had lived most of her life in the county cork in what is the republic of ireland when she was born that part of ireland was still part of the united kingdom but she herself became a champion of the nationalism of of the what is now the republic of ireland uh and yet she had enormous roots uh in england as well but her life was one mostly of stability in a particular place which i'll mention in a moment in county cork and she found that although she was a great artist and she became an illustrator of children's books and and she was also someone who was able to paint beautiful pictures she was also a musician but she found that with her cousin who was called violet martin she could write novels they inspired each other and i first came across one of her novels in our village book shop at home just picking it up rather as i said people do and knowing it by the cover i've won or two of her novels here and they're standing here we brought some books out to show how good it is to lay books around so that people pick them up but here's the one i want here at the bottom this is the book that i took off the shelves and began to start reading in the book shop it's called the complete experiences of an irish rm that meant in those days resident magistrate and it's simply written by summerville and ross it's how they cause themselves to be known and even after the death of violent ma violet martin who caught herself ross and she died in 1915 and um somerville mourned her loss he did some of he'll mourn her loss but at the same time she kept writing as summerville and ross and saying um we still inspire each other even though violet has gone beyond um edith somerville was a very devout member of the church of ireland and i found myself going when i was the dean of hereford to the very place where the family home was at skibarin and at castle townsend in county cork there's a family called murphy who owned a hotel and they were massive friends of our chapter clerk in hereford and he said why don't you go uh to southern ireland and get to know that is easy from here so on the swansea ferry to cork to cove and then into uh county cork we had the most wonderful time there on holiday at a hotel owned by the murphys but very near to the place where somerville and ross lived at the family home and the family home is known as drasheen but uh in the book she makes the the names different but the the at castle townsend which is the little place on the coast where the parish churches and the houses joshing um you you find that there's a plaque on the organ in the parish church there was saying but almost without a break sunday by sunday for years and years until the day of her death dr somerville played the organ for morning prayer lovely plaque there and one can imagine her going from the house to play the organ there but the the experience of an irish rm they published because they felt that if it was known that women had written this book fewer people would read it what an awful indictment so that that's how they published and that's how the book got known but at the same time i just read it i had no idea who they were and and read it in the bookshop here and read the the first pages and from the very start major sinclair yates with his short-sightedness and his monocle but also he's almost an anti-hero because everything goes wrong for him constantly but he gets to know the community he's sent that as the resident magistrate and gets to know the community and the places that somerville and ross known knew are all mentioned but that the names have changed a little as they go on but uh you'll remember if you know it though i have to confess i never watch never watch i'm purposely the television series of the irish resident magistrate because i didn't want my mental image of sinclair yates to be messed up and so flurry knox who is the the person that uh is a sight rogue but but a person who befriends the major and helps him along and the major says that flurry knox is part of a massive family of noxes who live in that part of county cork from sir valentine knox at castle knox down to knox the auctioneer at the other end of the scale who's known by everyone as larry the liar and then in the middle is flurry knox who himself isn't above making a penny or two by selling the major or horse but at the same time he's full of good ideas about what will happen at the appalling house that the poor major has landed himself in at first he's staying at mrs ravages uh in and praying for release from there but when he gets to the house with the housekeeper there and the freezing and smoky air of the house because every chimney smokes and and nothing seems to work he's praying to go back to mrs ravages but he's waiting for philippa his new bride to come and join him and he's terrified of what she'll think of the house when they come but those of you who know this book will know that it's full of hilarious adventures but i wanted to say that um edith somerville wrote so many novels and they all give a wonderful picture of that culture there and she herself as i say championed the cause of in the end the independence of of the republic of ireland although her brother had been an admiral in the royal navy and sadly and it seems by mistake but sadly was shot dead on the doorstep of their very home this was admiral henry somerville in 1936 and shot dead by orders of the ira and at that time the president of of ireland issued a huge apology and his relations with the ira changed at that point because a great mistake could be made at that point but somerville went on she finished her brother's book and went on playing the organ at the parish church and wrote others and there's this lovely one here the it's called the big house of inver with a a beautiful picture on the front of that part of ireland and she still labels it somerville and ross though ross martin violet martin had died long before and still thinking that to call somerville and ross would sell the book better what an indictment of all those readers who at that time would be in some way prejudiced against a book like that um but at the same time she was a huge friend of dame ethel smythe here's my other candidate this morning composer suffragette and in 1922 dame of the british empire for her music a dbe the first uh woman and i say because that's what the the record is saying and the woman composer yet at the same time that designation which kept being put on her so she's a woman composer was was a tremendous difficulty for her because newspaper reviews would say it's it's it's rather fierce for a woman composer this music rather stark and on the on on the other hand if she if she wrote beautiful tunes uh then in the same way it will be attached to her gender and and all of that we we lament as we go through dame ethel smythe wrote the great march for the suffragettes which was sung but she also composed she had a massive row as a young woman with her father who didn't want her to be a composer and study music in the end she went through and went to the leipzig conservatory met grieg vortac tchaikovsky was a friend of clara schumann brahms all of that she wrote a wonderful opera called devalde which was produced in the metropolitan opera house in new york in 1903 and let me say it was 2016 before another woman composer had an opera produced in the match and at that time also she wrote an opera which was well received here at the royal opera house um the wreckers uh as devalte was well received but something always seemed to hold her back yet she was created a dame the highest sort of honor that could be given it at at that time and said thomas beecham gave her a celebratory concert in the royal albert hall in 1934 far too late because by then dame ethel smythe was so deaf she couldn't hear the music or the rapturous applause which took place so this is a question of identity somerville and ross hiding their true identity said that their creative work could be appreciated without prejudice and dame ethelsmith certainly not hiding her identity her creative work clearly suffered but at the same time she was brave to do that and she suffered imprisonment also as a suffragette and when beecham went to see her he found the suffragettes who were in there with her marching around the exercise area singing her ansem for the suffragettes and and dame essel leaning out of the window conducting it with a toothbrush she was not to be daunted by a spell in holloway so all of that we remember as people embrace their identity as moses is going to have to and face the dangers and carry movement onwards so the books are here as a sign of the joy of people discovering reading books of creative gifts of so many different kinds of people this morning so let's say our prayers then on this particular day as we sit here in this damp air as the autumn comes on we're praying on this particular morning for the diocese of gabocho in the church of nigeria the abuja province and in this diocese continuing to pray for a focus on the harvest and at the same time we are remembering those people that we want to pray for and we pray of course for just in our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth and let me say a prayer for the occasion i went to yesterday i traveled to herefordshire to take the funeral of a dear friend that i'd known since birth as i told you yesterday his name john bryant and the lovely thing is that the little village of little birch with its beautiful church in the herefordshire countryside stood out on the verges as the hearse went past and packed the church and the tributes given showed someone devoted to his community there and his widow um betty in the the wheelchair um i must have felt the huge rush of love for john and respect for him he was a an apple grower but for a time he and betty had also run the village shop he seemed to be the heart and soul of the whole village but for me he'd been the boy next door and i was glad to go and give thanks for him and would pray for the repose of his soul and also for that is welfare at this time and those who look after her so let's say the prayer for the uh 18th sunday after trinity on this day almighty and everlasting god increase in us your gift of faith that forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to that which is before we may run the way of your commandments and win the crown of everlasting joy through jesus christ our lord amen [Music] so we say the prayer our savior taught us in whichever language you like to use 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 now as we say our own prayers so so do 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 you