good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury casino on this morning of wednesday the 20th of october it's been a very wet night and a wet early morning but the rain has now given us a little window to say our prayers in the garden this is a day when we shall be thinking of creative and architectural enterprises and also of of buildings like canterbury cathedral the the creative expression of the community that has worshipped here for hundreds of years and perhaps the great symbol of that is the bell harry tower standing proud against the sky and from all the surrounding hills a very visible point for pilgrims to make their way to to this holy place so please make your own way in heart and mind and spirit to this holy place as we say our morning prayers together on this wednesday morning in this little patch of almost sunshine at the moment as the rain clouds part for us oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice so lord according to your faithful love and according to your judgment give us life blessed are you god of compassion and mercy to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of our sin your light breaks forth like the dawn and your healing springs up for deliverance as we rejoice in the gift of your saving help sustain us with your bountiful spirit and open our lips to sing your praise blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind 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 20th morning of the month is psalm 103 bless the lord o my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name bless the lord o my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgives all your sins and heals all your infirmities who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with faithful love and compassion who satisfies you with good things so that your youth is renewed like an eagle's the lord executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed he made his ways known to moses and his works to the children of israel the lord is full of compassion and mercy slow to anger and of great kindness he will not always accuse us neither will he keep his anger forever he has not dealt with us according to our sins nor rewarded us according to our wickedness for as the heavens are high above the earth so great is his mercy upon those that fear him as far as the east is from the west so far has he set our sins from us as a father has compassion on his children so is the lord merciful towards those who fear him for he knows of what we are made he remembers that we are but dust our days are but as grass we flourish as a flower of the field for as soon as the wind goes over it it is gone and its place shall know it no more but the merciful goodness of the lord is from of old and endures forever on those who fear him and his righteousness on children's children on those who keep his covenant and remember his commandments to do them the lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom has dominion over all bless the lord you angels of his you mighty ones who do his bidding and hearken to the voice of his word bless the lord all you his hosts you ministers of his who do his will bless the lord all you works of his in all places of his dominion bless the lord o my soul so we turn back to the reading of the book of the exodus and yesterday we told the story of the second plague the frogs now we come to the third and fourth plagues in our lesson this morning so i'm reading from chapter eight of exodus and starting at verse 16 then the lord said to moses say to aaron stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth so that it may become gnats in all the land of egypt and they did so aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth and there were gnats on beast and humankind all the dust of the earth became gnats in all the land of egypt the magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats but they could not so there were gnats on beasts and humankind then the magicians said to pharaoh this is the finger of god but pharaoh's heart was hardened and he would not listen to them as the lord had said so then the lord said to moses rise up early in the morning and present yourself to pharaoh as he goes out to the water and say to him thus says the lord let my people go that they may serve me or else if you will not let my people go behold i will send swarms of flies on you and your servants and your people and into your houses and the houses of the egyptians shall be filled with swarms of flies and also the ground on which they stand but on that day i will set apart the land of goshen where my people dwell so that no swarms of flies shall be there that you may know that i am the lord in the midst of the earth thus i will put a division between my people and your people tomorrow this sign shall happen and the lord did so there came great swarms of flies into the house of pharaoh and into his servants houses throughout all the land of egypt the land was ruined by the swarms of flies then pharaoh called moses and aaron and said go sacrifice to your god within the land but moses said it would not be right to do so for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the lord our god are an abomination to the egyptians if we sacrifice offerings abominable to the egyptians before their eyes will they not stone us we must go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the lord our god as he tells us so pharaoh said i will let you go to sacrifice to the lord your god in the wilderness only you must not go very far away plead for me and moses said behold i am going out from you and i will plead with the lord that the swarms of flies may depart from pharaoh from his servants and from his people tomorrow only let not pharaoh cheat again by not letting the people go to sacrifice to the lord so moses went out from pharaoh and prayed to the lord and the lord did as moses asked and removed the swarms of flies from pharaoh from his servants and from his people not one remained but pharaoh hardened his heart this time also and did not let the people go it's becoming a pattern so that we are finding that moses and aaron are having their work cut out with the pharaoh in a big way hello tiger you're right um and the plagues will continue but see now what has happened that even those who are the as they're called in this translation the magicians of egypt are now saying that's much bigger than all of us this is the finger of god great phrase there are other instances when rulers in the scriptures i mean when rulers call their own wise men and magicians and people to come and stand in front of them and confront the ones who are purporting to be speaking on behalf of almighty god if you think of the book of daniel you'll find it there that that um the chaldeans call in wise people there and and ask and in the end it's only daniel the servant of the lord or the the other three meshach shadrach meshach of edmuga who can answer um and you find it that you you also have found vestiges of that still in the early part of the gospel of saint matthew when the magi come and stand in front of king herod and herod calls his own wise well here's pharaoh calling his own wives and until now they've said well this is nothing really we can do this kind of thing as well um but this morning is quite different they've said this is far beyond us this this this plague upon the people and it comes first that sense of this is the finger of god coming from the voices of the wise to their sovereign uh and it comes with with the gnats it's a irritating thing to have gnats around you whenever you're in the garden on a a damp and warm day you're you're feeling that there are there are biting insects around and here we're seeing swarms and swarms of the gnats these nuts and flies are hardly surprising when you think that our lesson yesterday when there were piles and piles of dead frogs from the plague of frogs lying around and the last sentence of yesterday was saying the land stank well we all know what happens when something some dead flesh is left around in warm weather it takes nothing nothing at all really to to um to have flies developing and gnats developing if i go back to the wonderful oratorio that handel wrote israel in egypt the chorus about this uh begins and it's a wonderful chorus about the gnats and the flies but that the the chorus begins the lord spake the word and that is given in a full one single note the lord spake the word trumpets in harmony sound as the lord speaks from heaven and there came all manner of flies and the violins are racing around like swarms of gnats and flies i've read the two plagues together but one follows the other but they are born of the the the same kind engendered from the plagues which have come before it's almost sequential and the magicians say it's the finger of god meaning that they do not say this must be a sign that you really ought to listen because it's clearly the presence of these people that are it's causing all of this to happen to us this is the finger of god we're focusing on one really small event in world terms which becomes of both human and divine significance immeasurably more than one can even begin to picture when you are seeing moses and aaron standing before the pharaoh and his troubled courtiers and and wise men at that time it's going to come to a point the exodus where it will become a foundation stone of eternal dimensions taking them on to the giving of the law taking them on to the promised land and allowing to develop that culture in which in the end after exiles again and many wars and occupations by foreign armies in the end these are the chosen people from whom our lord will be born and in whom he will begin his ministry so this incident which is starting with plagues and this act of freedom which moses is asking the pharaoh to grant has already been recognized by the magicians whom pharaoh has called from his own people as this morning the finger of god pharaoh is not ready to receive that yet and he's still in both resistant mood and bargaining mood as so many despots are i want to go to a different kind of of a theme in a way though it's the same thing of of of rising with creativity to the heavens from from a moment of destruction and and awful distress this is the day the 20th of october according to the old calendar before it changed in the end of the 18th century that when sir christopher wren the architect was born i say the architect but architect wasn't really a profession in those days it was still a developing thing you had master builders but ren was very much an anatomist an astronomer a geometer a mathematician and he became at one time in his life the professor of astronomy at oxford but ren is now known probably by more people if you say name a famous architect here in these islands people would say so christopher wren uh as probably the most common answer there are many more who are remembered of course and by those who know architecture well or have no particular buildings they may name someone else much more modern but ren still carries the torch for architecture and the interesting thing about ren was that when he was created the uh surveyor of the royal buildings or surveyor to the king to king charles ii newly restored to the throne in 1660 ren already had been asked to restore saint paul's cathedral and sin paul's cathedral is not the saint paul's cathedral we're thinking of now we're talking early 1660s when the huge gothic style saint paul's cathedral dominated the city of london and looked not unlike belle parry which you've been looking at this morning a gothic building like canterbury a massive gothic building standing in london and in very bad repair in 1660 following the years of the commonwealth and following the restoration of anglican church of england worship once again when the king returned and wren was appointed and in order to help him him himself with this restoration of sin paul's cathedral he went to rome to meet people like bernini and and at that point awful plague broke out in london the great plague of london it's a word that that appears uh plague and pestilence and famine in the the book of the revelation as one of the things which humankind from time to time have to face and we've tended to call it either kobit 19 or pandemic as we've wrestled with that threat to our humanity in these last more than 18 months now and um so ren went there and then returned with i suppose in his mind plans of how he would restore old sinfuls and then fire broke out in london in 1666 disastrous and catastrophic fire which burned old sinfuls and the the the drawings at that time of the flames rising high over the city of london as it burned and over the the great gothic church of saint paul's and there after plague and fire was a completely new landscape and christopher wren took his opportunity and he restored or rebuilt 52 churches within the city of london but what you think of him building most of all there are other wonderful buildings like the royal hospital at chelsea or the old naval college in greenwich or even the wren building at william and mary college in virginia which was done at a distance but is called the wren building after him but it's sin paul's cathedral in london with its great dome reaching up to the heavens in its uh almost a a a half of the earth that great dome and and as you look at it still despite all the buildings around it which tend to grow up and dwarf it standing there is a huge tribute to ren himself but also his radical architecture at that time he didn't just rebuild he actually completely changed the vision of what's in paul's would look like as a cathedral in london and as a sign these days of london when you see it shining in floodlight or shining in the sunshine on an ordinary morning it's become a symbol of the city of london and of the life the spiritual life of that city of london you go and stand by the um grave of ren and you read those famous words that we were asked once to learn at school lector c monumentum requires here come speaker reader if you seek a monument for this man look around you and that's probably the best memorial that anyone could could could have as we remember him on this day um i'd also perhaps want to remember as we're thinking of visions and completely new buildings said joseph paxton who was the the the head gardener at at chatsworth house for the duke of devonshire but also much much more than that and and paxton will get and deserves a whole morning prayer on his own with his both his horticultural knowledge his development of plants even bananas uh but what i wanted to say was his building of glass houses and experimenting with that caused him to be the the one the architect of the great crystal palace exhibition in 1851 a new vision of how a great building can let in light from every quarter to assist all the huge plants that have been brought in with the modern inventions as well a sign of the victorian age and the brainchild of prince albert the prince consort so let's let's uh think of paxton but let's put him aside because i want to go somewhere entirely other right on to the other side of the world where at the moment it is not uh autumn it is actually spring and i'm thinking of australia and i'm thinking of the city of sydney there um on the water uh and and remembering that on this day in 1973 and i remember the occasion i was a curious in shrewsbury at the time but i remember that i just had my priesthood in july and this was october october the 20th when her majesty the queen opened the sydney opera house now the the sydney opera house was um built to the design of a danish architect john ottson and he had won the competition well back in 1957 to design the sydney opera house and he took inspiration from all kinds of things that he found there and one of his sentences i think pleases us quite a lot he said a design can grow like a tree if it grows naturally the architecture will take care of itself well in that kind of of activity the the design of of of things growing up organically one feels that when one looks at his design of the sydney opera house then even the clean and and enlarged shells of the beaches of of that land um shining in the sunshine are are there as one shell-like uh design goes embraces another and another another or else you you sense rather like sin so christopher wren's dome circles and ellipses just growing as a design but also reaching to heaven is what he had in mind he'd taken inspiration as a danish architect from all over the world and was most moved especially by the mayan culture in mexico and the buildings that he found that they had created reaching up to the heavens reaching up away from human kinds with aspirations of huge vision now any of you who know the story of the years of the building of the sydney opera house must know that there were tremendous arguments controversies rise about how much it was costing the governments of new south wales uh changed in in elections and new governments thought differently about it and in the end um uh john hutson lost heart and simply closed his office and went home and there were demonstrations saying bring hudson back but at the time it looked as though the project might even fail it didn't it continued through and that sense of hutson's design was still there it was something that was then taken on by those who came after him and now of course it is a world heritage site anjon utson was the only the second person to be alive when one of his buildings was declared a world heritage site that precious and now it when one thinks of the city of sydney it's that design which comes into mind well on this day in 1973 our present queen opened the building now you will you will understand that the queen's gift for understatement and a sense of gentle irony uh is one of the ways in which situations can be made aware of truth but at the same time in a way which which causes people to to smile rather than to keep controversies going and on that day she said in her speech he wasn't allowed to mention john upson and and his name wasn't mentioned at all at the opening ceremony such had been the the sense of the controversies that had gone on but the her majesty absolutely up to the occasion began her speech and this this bit was not the bit i remember the next bit i did remember as a really visionary statement for me as a young priest and for humanity with its vision of god but this is the this is the the best bit really um her majesty said the sydney opera house has captured the imagination of the world though i understand that its construction has not been totally without problems a large understatement but almost an oblique reference to arson because she then goes on and this is the sentence i do did remember the human spirit must sometimes take wings or sails and create something that is not just utilitarian or commonplace it's a wonderful visionary statement we've been treated this morning in our news bulletins to another story about her majesty now many many years later of course but this has happened in the last 24 hours or been known about in the last 24 hours and this was the fact that the magazine the oldie had uh wanted to give to her majesty the queen the honor of being oldie of the year and they wrote to sir edward young his private secretary and uh asked that she might accept this honor and the answer came back uh from uh sir edward um the queen was deeply honoured and grateful for this suggestion but um uh the queen believes that you are as old as you feel and as such she does not believe she meets the relevant criteria to be able to accept this honor and hopes you will find a more worthy recipient how wonderful that she feels young still and still the person who said those words the human spirit must sometimes take wings or sails and create something that is not just utilitarian or commonplace you could say that about any creative endeavor and the reaching from that and this morning as we contemplate the plagues of the flies and the gnats from the rotting frogs and all of that we remember an architect like ren who from the plague and the fire and destruction of 1665-1666 which visited the citizens of london he rose up a new cathedral of a completely radical design which has become the symbol of that city and we give thanks for um john hudson and his design which captured the spirit of what she felt was australia and has now become the sign of that when you visit sydney on a television program it's when you see that or of course the harbour bridge but that that that you think oh we're in sydney and and it's a cheerful and wonderful design reaching like the mayans in mexico who inspired him or the the chinese desire for harmony in all things which inspired him or his sense of architecture looking after itself once the design has begun to grow like this lovely yew tree which is above me this morning or bell harry behind me the sign and symbol of canterbury itself so thanks be to god for ren and paxton with his crystal palace and uh utzen with his design for the sydney opera house as we remember her majesty the queen reminding us that we're only as old as we feel and i take heart from that as well so let's uh say our own prayers today on this morning and we are praying in the anglican communion on this day for the diocese of grafton in the anglican church of australia in the new south wales province so that's all very very apt and right on a day when we're remembering the sydney opera house and also uh in this diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambeth and today for the parish of saint peter and saint paul at river that's in the dover area deanery that we've been praying for and we pray for the parish priests there and debauchery and all who help him in his ministry and for the life of charlton church of england primary school so let's say our own prayers together and also oh dear russell has arrived he he actually can't get in here because the hens are kept out by nets from coming to eat the the cabbages and things but he's standing behind me so he may join in with our prayers good morning russell you've come through the hedge here is the collect today and uh we're going to say that together across the world but you will be bringing very different prayers from your own situations god the giver of life whose holy spirit wells up within your church by the spirit's gifts equip us to live the gospel of christ and make us eager to do your will that we may share with the whole creation the joys of eternal life through jesus christ our lord our men so each 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 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 for your own prayers 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 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 are men you