good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of sunday the 19th of september it's a nice autumn morning and uh you'll hear in the background not only the the sound of darcy but also occasionally the clucking of young pheasants in their enclosure nearby but i've brought out or letters brought out into the the garden this morning a beautiful tube rose it grows in the greenhouse of course but i'm sitting beside it it's standing on the the table here and uh although it looks such an unassuming white flower it's scent is extraordinary and it's no wonder that it is the foundation of so many perfumes many of you will have have had the smell of a tube rose perfume without seeing a tube rose well here is a tube rose and i can smell it even from here but when you enter the greenhouse particularly at night the scent of the tube rose fills the whole air and it's it really is a delicious one you don't have to put your nose near it it actually surrounds you so this little unassuming flower i wish uh i've said that so many times we could we could send scent through the the camera so that you could enjoy it as well but this morning in a moment or two is going to be given to a different group of our friends and i shall explain why um we spoke about the the way in which a group of virgers 16 of them from kent came to be our guests on friday afternoon and wandered around the orchards many of them were members of the garden congregation and amongst them was a virger of ours who no longer serves as an active version but she's very much a member of our community our worshiping community and a daily a member of our garden congregation and some years ago now uh she she wrote a children's book with drawings called glorious guineas about the guinea fowl who are live in the deanery and in the surrounds and i had said it was out of print well i find it's not uh our shop still has copies of glorious guineas by margaret ovenden and it's a humorous children's book with cartoons of the guineas and their they're all named uh and mo as we called her from her her own resources finance the printing of that and there are more online uh and can they can still be brought because mo has financed another printing of glorious guinness um but i wanted to say that what you will read in this and you can find details of it online is about the guinnes uh some years ago with the the chapter as it was i think in about 2014 or 15 16 something around that sort of period and it was it was fun developing that book with mo uh it was something that if you read you will see members of chapter uh mentioned in their various activities that that isn't the chapter as you see it now uh canon clare is is is mentioned she was our canon pastor and she's mentioned she's she's now a senior priest in the diocese of gloucester but uh she has mentioned uh baking a a a a a fruit crumble for the virges and archdeacon sheila as she then was and her husband derek who had been dean of salisbury actually can sheila now in semi-retirement he is a consultant and honorary member of the the chapter of saint paul's cathedral uh canon chris irvin the canon librarian at the time is mentioned and we remember him and his wife rosie as an a very active part of this precinct during a large num long number of years so as you read this you will get a flavor of that but at the same time you will find that uh the the uh the the guineas are out and about and they used to live in the the um on the green court i've omitted uh cannon nick papadopoulos and his wife heather heather was a judge and still is a judge but nick is now the dean of salisbury so all these people have moved on to other positions but the book still references them and all the the uh guinea fowl and the hens and some of those sadly have died since then and gone on um are given names and so the the story is a fun one for for reading but think of it as a a few years ago and at that time the guinness used to live on the green court outside they were even in the school the king school prospectus uh as a feature of canterbury and they used to sleep in the the willow tree which you've seen above where we we uh keep the pigs in the front garden uh and that great willow tree was their home uh that they they made watchful noises and you know what a guinea power noise sounds like and uh that they like manlius in the the old classical story with the geese if a fox or someone in the night walked past the guineas would explode in in their noise and in the end out of sensitivity and following some suggestions from neighbors and we couldn't transfer them here because their habits because they're they're wild birds really their habits caused them always to go back to the willow they went on an extended holiday shall we say and then return to a different part of the garden where they now are now um in the book you will not find fletcher mentioned because he said to moe in his usual way i don't really want to be uh acknowledged or credited with any of this but the whole idea of the guinea fowl as with all the wild creatures and the the growing of the garden were his and he'll be shaking his head now for me even mentioning it but uh i think you should know that and uh so if you want that it's it's online and all the all the proceeds go to the the cathedral itself last night too we enjoyed ourselves in the orchard because our two really favorite houses next door school houses where the boys house of lineker the girls house of luxmore just over the garden wall were having a really cheerful barbecue and karaoke and so fletcher put all the lights on on the trees of the garden and the orchard and we sat in the orchard listening to the enjoyable noises and the children singing in the karaoke that's the sound we've missed for a long time and it shows the life of the school and tonight at 7 30 i shall be admitting what we call king scholars boys and girls into the foundation of the cathedral the historic community dating all the way back to augustine himself in 597 and the foundation of this cathedral church and the school therefore has the the distinction of calling itself the oldest school in the world uh we're in in continual activity and we remember that and i shall certainly remember that with the word the latin words said over each of them admitted i admit you in to this community we are also acting as hosts today of many pilgrims a large group of pilgrims from loughborough and i think nearly all of them members of our garden congregation have come down to share our life this weekend and as i walked across the precincts yesterday again and again i was accosted by people in a nice way saying we're members of the garden congregation and we're we're here to worship with you and then i made a mistake because as i went across to the shop just to get a copy of one of these to show you um i said to a lady standing there she came up and said i'm a member of the garden congregation and i should have listened to her voice because i said are you from loughborough she said no i'm from dallas texas and we laughed together and then she spoke about how she had come across here particularly to come here because she's a member of the garden congregation so things are beginning to open up and in a moment or two we'll be joined by the guinea fowl but i thought i'd say all of that before they make their rambustious noise and here's tiger coming along first as well so maybe he'll manage to get some breakfast before the feathered friends begin to appear i'm holding in my hands uh wonderful feathers of the guinea fowl which are very attractive and fall in the garden here so here we are little boy that's not your food here's yours so let's say our prayers on this sunday morning sunday the 19th of september o lord open our lips and our mouths shall proclaim your praise bless the lord all you works of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you heavens sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you angels of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord all people on earth sing his praise and exalt him forever o people of god bless the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you priests of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord you servants of the lord sing his praise and exalt him forever bless the lord all you of upright spirit bless the lord you that are holy and humble in heart bless the father the son and the holy spirit sing his praise and exalt him forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 19th morning of the month is psalm 95 now psalm 95 is generally known in the book of common prayer as the viney and it was in that order of service the psalm we said every morning at the beginning of our worship i think because of verse six and at that point we we actually did uh bow down and uh come to worship him and so here is psalm 95 said for the 19th morning of the month 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 in his hand are the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountains are his also the sea is his for he made it and his hands have molded the dry land 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 oh that today you would listen to his voice harden not your hearts as admirable on that day at masa in the wilderness when your forebears tested me and put me to the proof though they had seen my works forty years long i detested that generation and said this people are wayward in their hearts they do not know my ways so i swore in my roth they shall not enter into my rest that lovely verse come let us worship and bow down and that is the the uh line which caused this to be the opening psalm every day at that time but today we use it to give thanks for the morning and i remind you that in the epistle to the hebrews there's that long passage using the uh word today saying there is still time to enter into god's rest today if you hear his voice harden not your hearts so the writer to the hebrews gives us that all over again at the beginning of the works of the new covenant good morning ducky so here we are with the book of isaiah this morning and you remember how last week we were seeing how the lord chooses as his anointed instrument for his people to return his people to jerusalem a very strange person indeed i'm talking about cyrus the emperor of all that eastern empire which has come from persia and taken over babylon and when babylon is taken over jewish exiles are found there and cyrus the emperor issues an edict that they can all go home and the prophet isaiah sees that as using the persian emperor as an instrument of god's will that jerusalem shall be reinhabited by the exiles and the temple built again and the city walls raised again so we're in chapter 45 where we left off last week and we're reading words that the lord speaks partly about cyrus partly to cyrus and partly to us and there are certainly some shall we say knapsack sentences in this chapter 45 beginning where we left off verse 9 and going through to verse 22. woe to the one who strives with their maker who formed them a pot among earthen pots does the clay say to the potter who forms it what are you making or your work has no handles woe to the one who says to a father what are you begetting or to a mother with what are you in labor thus says the lord the holy one of israel and the one who formed him asked me of things to come will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands i made the earth and created humankind on it it was my hands it stretched out the heavens and i commanded all their hosts i have stirred them up in righteousness and i will make all their ways level they shall build my city and he shall set my exiles free not for price or reward says the lord of hosts thus says the lord the wealth of egypt and the merchandise of cush and the sabians men of stature shall come over to you and be yours they shall follow you they shall come over in chains and bow down to you they will plead with you saying surely god is in you and there is no other no god besides him truly you are a god who side hides himself oh god of israel the savior all of them are put to shame and confounded the makers of idols go in confusion together but israel is saved by the lord with everlasting salvation you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity for thus says the lord who created the heavens he is god who formed the earth and made it he established it he did not create it empty he formed it to be inhabited i am the lord and there is no other i did not speak in secret in a land of darkness i did not say to the offspring of jacob seek me in vain i the lord speak the truth i declare what is right assemble yourselves and come draw near together you survivors of the nation they have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols and keep on praying to a god that cannot save declare and present your case let them take counsel together who told this long ago who declared it of old was it not i the lord and there is no other god besides me a righteous god and savior there is none beside me turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth for i am god and there is no other well a slightly confusing passage because some of it is spoken to god's people some of it is spoken to cyrus who is going to let god's people go free and go back to jerusalem and some of us some of it is spoken to us and there is a response as well from the nations of the world and they will come and in effect bow down and we're talking about the surrounding nations of jerusalem bow down to the great emperor not knowing that the emperor is being used as god's agent to bring the people home so we have a really interesting passage and in that we see how kings emperors people in power presidents and and and uh leaders of nations can be used as god's instruments without knowing it but to the one who interprets it the prophetic voice in this it's absolutely clear that cyrus is the anointed one as we saw right at the beginning of chapter 45 isaiah last week cyrus is the anointed one who's been chosen by god to let the people come home to jerusalem and rebuild the temple earthly rulers used as god's instruments we've been reading at matins day by day in the uh matins we say together in the cathedral are passages from the wisdom of solomon and in those passages the qualities of the one who is wise are set out in beautiful words and it reminds one all the time as the writer is saying this and and talking to us reminds us that if he's talking about solomon well in the end solomon failed and was found to be unworthy despite all those gifts of wisdom and they're listed in lists of what wisdom can actually achieve but in the end the temptations for solomon were so great that the kingdom was torn from the hands of his son because of solomon at the end leaving the path of absolute faithfulness and rehoboam and we've come onto that story in the daily machines in the cathedral now rehab the sun acts unwisely and the kingdom is torn from rare birm's hand leaving him only the tribes of judah and benjamin and the rest of the tribes turn their back on him because of that failure failure in wisdom but essentially a failure in keeping solomon's heart straight forward in perceiving the will of god and in all of that we see wisdom as the defining principle but you have to go to the first epistle of the corinthians to find what wisdom is being talked about it's god's wisdom not human wisdom wisdom secret and revealing of god himself from the very beginning and and often that has been identified as the word the logos present at creation and then made flesh in the person of jesus christ all of that coming together in that principle of wisdom but wisdom is not something we get simply by thinking it's a gift of grace easy to fall away from and back to that sentence today if you will hear his voice heart and not his voice harden not your hearts it's the first sentence of every day and it used always to begin worship in that way come let us worship and bow down today if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts and then as people have done in the past so we think of all those things on this day when earthly rulers are going to be making decisions for the welfare of their peoples throughout the day as they always do and we pray for grace and the welfare of those people as we think of the many situations in the world where people are longing for good government to help them in situations of crisis war natural disaster and pandemic this is a day on the 19th of september in the year 86 a.d that's the roman emperor antoninus pius was born and he died in the year 161 so that he is seen as the the fourth of the emperors and he is of the good emperors the fifth the five good emperors which kept the whole of the roman empire at its peak from the year 96 all the way through to the year 180 you could see that is the prime of the roman empire when there was internal peace and the boundaries of the empire were kept secure and even extended and if you look at those five good emperors they began in the year 96 and with nava and then in 98 with trajan in the year 117 with hadrian in the year 138 when the one i mentioned antoninus pius became emperor and finally with probably the most uh famous in terms of philosophy marcus aurelius who was emperor from 161 to 180. that is the the great period of rome and the five good emperors and we're thinking of the way in which those people those emperors kept their people as safe as they could be in good order securing internal peace and protecting the boundaries around the area that they governed so we give thanks for the fact that people are wanting to take government in their hands to be elected or appointed to roles of authority but we pray day by day that the decisions they make will be decisions for the total welfare of their people prompted by grace and on this day too it's the same kind of theme really uh 1796 george washington's farewell address was published in a newspaper in philadelphia he tried once before to step down from being president in 1792 and he was persuaded both by jefferson and by hamilton that it wasn't the time for him to do it there was too much dissension amongst those who were leaders of the nation uh and so he he said yes i'll do one more term but in 1796 he decided enough was enough and he issued that appeal which you can read and which has become a very famous piece of writing from washington and it's an appeal for the the unity of his peoples because he could see faction and dissension amongst those who might take power there and it's an appeal also for a sense of neutrality and fair-handedness across the world not to get embroiled in in in others wars and and alliances well that proved in the end to be a fond hope because of the way in which we are all so much involved with one another uh in this as it turns out quite small planet as we know news comes right from the other side of the world in in a second at the moment because of the way in which the the the uh the virtual world works and so that the the whole of the the jigsaw of nations and the welfare of nations and the connection of leadership across the world becomes an intensely important one and so we look back to that 1796 declaration of how he thinks things should be but that this wasn't the task for him in those years ahead and then lastly on this day i wanted to say that on this day sir william golding was born on the 19th of september 1911. do you want to come on to me or are you just going to stand on the table um we we have spoken about sir william golding before he's a a novelist and he was born in that year and began quite early in his life to to write and was a wonderful storyteller but he became best known and this was after he had come back from years in service in the royal navy during the second world war he returned to the job he had which is in bishop wordsworth school which is located in the close in salisbury cathedral just as our king school is located here in the precincts in canterbury so bishop wordsworth school is is in the close it's salisbury and he was a master there a school teacher there english philosophy greek and drama he'd begun there before the war he returned there after the war and was there um for some years until his writing demanded that he did that full time but in 1952 and from the uh the the things which he had uh uh had gleaned from his teaching life he began to write the book lord of the flies which was published in 1954 and it's probably still his most famous work now we've been through that together before so many of his works tell the tale of what happens to humankind when regular authority and the ordering of a particular society or community breaks down and the results can be terrifying and the lord of the flies of course tells that story and sets out the characters in there but at the same time he's known for his novel the spire which is largely thought to to reflect that tall elegant and beautiful spire of salisbury cathedral which can be something of spiritual value pointing to heaven or in the novel is shown also to be a temptation to earthly grandeur and glory and success so these these two facets of you of humankind are set out in in dramatic ways but then there is his trilogy and it it it really deals with the same thing it's called that the whole trilogy is called to the ends of the earth but you will remember how it begins with the story of a voyage which goes on in the the the books the trilogy itself so that golding starts a voyage of people going to australia and they're all traveling in the same ship we're talking about the 18th century a very dangerous journey no serious canal you had to go all the way around and you a long time to get to australia and there they are a mixed group of passengers and the story is told in the journals of edward talbot uh he is going out to a a position a fairly junior position in in the administration of australia at that time but he he writes in a journal and we know that golding wrote a journal every day of his his life right up to the day he died in 1993 till the night before and he used the journal to quarry back into for stories for his particular novels and he shows once again what happens to a group of people the temptations they face the tensions there are when they are enclosed well we've just gone through a lockdown situation and many of the nations are still suffering from that lockdown with the pandemic and it comes and goes but this is very different and the privations that they have and the temptations and all of those come deep from within golding's own struggles and his knowledge of the sea as well so we give thanks once again for the way in which and we think back to the joseph story which we're doing day by day the way in which people in their words can recount a story give us images and help us identify so that when we actually begin the gift of every new day body mind and spirit we offer ourselves most of us in some kind of community and a community which will see hospitable and encouraging activities we say uh we offer ourselves come let us worship and bow down and kneel before the lord our maker that was the line of the psalm which began every every morning prayer in the old liturgy but at the same time we go to the epistle of to the hebrews which points to that psalm in its later verse today if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts and the temptations to do so are amply set out in golding's novels but also the story of cyrus which we read is an ample pointer to anyone with authority over others of whatever kind and it can be even within family and community life that it's the the general welfare and the good of all by grace that those decisions will be assisting day by day so let's say our prayers on this particular day sorry tiger bashing your head with the book and we are praying today in the uh world the anglican world for the province of uganda and the people who live and worship there and then in our own diocese of canterbury as we pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover and tim bishop at lambeth we're praying is a listening and discerning day for um biodiversity while we're always thinking about biodiversity in our garden congregation because we can't get away from it with creation all around us but we pray therefore for the work of t teresa redfern our canterbury diocese and environmental officer so let's say the new colleagues it's the 16th sunday after trinity so a new prayer and we use that together bring your own intentions and prayers this morning oh lord we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers of your people who call upon you and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill them through jesus christ our lord amen moment of silence now for your own prayers as we preface that with the words of the our father and say those in whatever words you like to to say before we enter our silence 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 so [Music] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always are men there's a heavy bell of dunstan as we call it is calling me to matins we'll leave tiger with the beautiful scent of the tuberose still filling the air [Music] so [Music] uh [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] ah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] ah [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] you