Trinity 13
Sermon preached by the Reverend Anna Matthews
Monarchs are a decidedly mixed bag in the Bible. When the people of Israel first clamour for a king, it’s in defiance of God’s desire that he be king over them. He had chosen them, called them, bound himself to them in covenant love. But they wanted to be like the other nations that surrounded them, with a king who would lead them in battle and defend them. God lets them have their king, but warns them of the heavy burdens the king would lay on them, taxing them, exploiting them, taking the best of the land and its produce for himself.
There are some good kings in the bible, though none who are uncomplicatedly good. David, Israel’s greatest king, is culpable for the exploitation of Bathsheba and the death of her husband. Solomon, wise beyond any of his peers, builder of the temple, patron of the arts, is also a king who arrogates to himself great power and wealth, and, fatefully, turns away from the God of Israel to worship other gods. His successors, with a handful of exceptions, lead the nation into decline and disintegration. God’s warning was true.
By the time of the exile, with the monarchy subjugated to foreign rule, the temple destroyed, and the promised land lost, God’s warning turns into a denunciation on the lips of his prophets. The shepherds of Israel – and the shepherd is primarily an image for the king in the Old Testament – the shepherds of Israel have not done as they were called to do. They have failed as leaders of God’s people. They have not strengthened the weak, or healed the sick, or bound up the injured, or brought back the strayed, or sought the lost, but instead have ruled with force and harshness.
Because, although Israel had wanted a king so they could be like the other nations, their whole identity is based on their not being like the other nations. The kings God sets over them are not simply to be leaders in battle, political manoeuvrers who are in it for themselves. The kings are to be among the people as signs of who God is. God is the true king: the monarchs set over Israel and Judah are there to be signs in human flesh of God’s justice and character. This is the vocation for which they are anointed and set apart. And it is the vocation in which so many of them fail, in their eagerness to be just like the other nations and their rulers.
And so, says God, ‘I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out… I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak… I will feed them with justice.’
God does not give up on the idea of the monarchy. But God’s desire for a king over his people who will be a sign in human flesh of God’s own justice and character will be met by God taking on flesh, coming to seek out his lost people, to bring us back when we stray, to tend us when we’re injured and to strengthen us when we’re weak. In Jesus God comes to his people as king. He shows us the character of the true Shepherd. This is a king who mixes freely with his people, and loves especially the lost, the strayed, and the marginalised. This is a king who stoops to wash dirty feet, and whose pierced hands mark the cost of such love.
This history, this theology, is carried into the practice of monarchy today in the UK. In the coronation oath the monarch promises to cause law and justice in mercy to be executed in all their judgements, and to uphold the Law of God and the profession of the Gospel. We are the only country in the world that still has an anointed monarch – anointed with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord – anointed, that is, with the Holy Spirit of God, that the monarch might govern as a sign in human flesh of God’s kingship.
The history of our monarchy shows us that, just like the biblical monarchy, there are good rulers and bad rulers. And that even the good ones are not uncomplicatedly good. In Queen Elizabeth we are fortunate to have lived under the long rule of a good monarch: a Queen who knew whose minister she was, who gave herself, as she promised on her 21st birthday, whether her life be long or short, to the service of her people. She could not know, then, what she was promising, or what that commitment would ask of her – no one could. But as a Christian of deep faith she knew that she needed God to help her make good her vow – and he did.
The life of discipleship has been described as ‘a long obedience in the same direction.’ That vow made by the then Princess Elizabeth gave her her direction, and her whole life long she lived it out. Amid all the social, political, cultural and familial changes of her reign, her calling, her long obedience, the ministry for which she was set apart, consecrated, and anointed, was to serve her people. And she learnt what service meant from the one who came among us as a servant king.
Much has been said about Her Majesty’s sense of duty, her dedication, her stability and her devotion. And perhaps part of our grief over her death is the fear that these virtues too are passing from us. The pace of change accelerates. Trust and integrity in public life are low. We feel beset by crises, and wonder who is equal to the challenge of leading us through them. Like sheep without a shepherd, we go astray, we get lost, we are broken and don’t know how to fix ourselves.
The Queen knew she was not the answer to our predicament. ‘History teaches us’, she said in a Christmas broadcast, that ‘we need saving from ourselves, from our recklessness or our greed. God sent into the world neither a philosopher or a general… but a Saviour with the power to forgive.’ This Saviour, Jesus Christ, is the king of whom the Queen remained a faithful and devoted subject her entire life. And we give thanks for all the ways in which she was a sign among us in human flesh of Jesus’ kingship and of the character of God, as she promised all those years ago.
St Paul tells us that we do not grieve as those who have no hope. That doesn’t mean we don’t grieve: we do – for Queen Elizabeth and all she represented for us; for the other losses stirred up by her death. But we hope, too, because Jesus our king is raised from the dead. Because though the Queen is dead we pray ‘God save the King’. Because the king whom Her Majesty served is also our king, and the Spirit with which she was anointed is the same Spirit given to us. It is not just monarchs whose lives are called to be a long obedience in the same direction. It’s us, too: in Christian terms we are all members of Jesus’ royal family. We are the ones who are to show in human flesh what his kingship and character is. And so service and duty, dedication and devotion, faithfulness and commitment, wisdom and understanding – the signs of the Spirit we saw so abundantly in Queen Elizabeth – will not be lacking as long as Christ our King has subjects as loyal as she was.
So we commend the Queen to her King, and with her we acclaim him as King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever.