(A sermon on 7th May 2023, the photo is of a home made Orb 🙂 )
God save the King! Gosh we do coronations well. That was amazing yesterday. I was just glued from the moment that boy started the liturgy with– “Your majesty as children of the kingdom of God we welcome you in the name of the King of kings”. Oh my!
And then came layers upon layers of important symbolism – The gift of the bible – Receive this book – here is wisdom, these are the lively oracles of God.
The book didn’t look like the sort of bible that you could easily carry about or have at your bedside – so I hope that he has one, I hope that you have one – we have some gospels over on the north side – do take one – but more importantly Get Reading! These are the lively oracles of God.
And then with the symbolism, I’ve spoken already about the Psalm 72, and the Orb and the sceptre and the rod – that sermon was Friday night you can watch it on our Church facebook page or read the text of the sermon on our church website on the blog page.
But there’s more – there’s the spurs of chivalry, the Sword to resist evil and defend good, the bracelets of sincerity and wisdom, the robe of righteousness, the ring to show the marriage of God’s calling between king and people, the glove – just the one glove of gentleness and grace.
But none of these trinkets actually give you anything. They in themselves do not contain any super powers. You don’t get to put on the bracelet and then say Well Now I am Wise and Sincere. You don’t get to wear the robe and say Now I am Righteous!
These shiny things are there as a prompt, a humbling prompt that this is what you need if you are to do what God is calling you to do. And that should leave you feeling awestruck, and humbled and Not too full of yourself.
So what Charles 3rd needs to be king boils down to two things. Firstly we see it in the Holy Oil. I’m glad the anointing was kept from the cameras to allow that most personal of moments. I had wondered if it was about privacy – who wants to see the king in a shirt – but we did. So it wasn’t about that sort of privacy, but rather more about prayerful intimacy
The first bible reading we had today, from Isaiah, – interestingly we weren’t given the options of what the king had – from Isaiah 40 starts with the indescribable enormity of God, the sublime numinous, the ineffable single deity for whom all the nations in the world don’t add up to even one bucket full of trouble.
This is the LORD God who made knowledge and wisdom, who made the heavens and the mountains, who called into creation the stars of the sky – this is the God who made all things visible and invisible – to what can you compare God to?!
And so the first half of that Isaiah reading should leave you feeling a little small and insignificant about yourself, a little over-awed at the awesomeness of God.
But the second half of the Isaiah reading, This King of the Universe, this God speaks directly to Jacob, to the tribes of Israel. This God reveals Himself so that we can know His ways. He speaks to us in Scripture, in Nature, in Prophets and Priests, and in prayer.
And so we go from a failing to grasp the infinite transcendence of God – to this intimate presence of God, who is close to us, who reveals Himself to us, who is with us – yes in Scripture, in Sacrament, in the Church, in Jesus.
And the transcendent and the immanent come together in this simple understanding that this infinite God is the one who never grows tired or weary – not of your prayers, nor mine, not of your sins, nor mine, This God never grows tired.
Instead we see that the LORD God is the one who draws close to us in worship because God wants to lift us up, for us to grow in faith and hope and love and so God persists in being with us, in giving to us and encouraging us.
So just before that anointing moment we saw the king in just a shirt and I immediately thought about last week’s sermon! There we looked at King David dancing before the Lord and no longer wearing his Regal Coronation Robes but simply wearing a linen shirt – his wife dismissive of him looking so common and unimportant – and we saw that in this act of humbling – that the king was taking the focus off himself and onto God.
So here king Charles in his shirt, humble before God, was making this moment a moment for God. In this moment king Charles was opening himself up for what we week in week out refer to as a time of personal prayer ministry – do come up to the side chapel during communion and someone will pray for you. I don’t think they will anoint you with oil but even so that’s quite a normal part of prayer ministry.
So this moment is hidden from the TV, from the public, because it is a moment of spiritual intimacy. I love that word intimacy.
Because when we come to God in prayer we invite Him in, to look into us, to pour in His perfect love, to drive out our fear, to bring His healing to our souls so that we can let go of unnecessary burdens and chips on our shoulders and griefs and receive the forgiveness and begin the forgiveness that we so very much need. So I think of the word intimacy as In To Me See.
In this moment of deeply personal prayer, the Bishops were praying for the king to be filled with God’s love.
Amen to that.
And the king will need this if he is to serve.
And Charles 3rd did say, that he wanted to emulate the King of kings, Jesus who came to serve not to be served.
But – as the archbishop of Canterbury preached – Did you see Bishop Richard escorting the Queen? (He used to be the bishop of Lewes – I knew him before he was bishop!)
ABofC spoke about the burdens that we all carry, the weight of responsibility, the expectations of others, because with the privilege of power comes the call, the duty to serve. And service is love in action, and we see that in how we care for the vulnerable, the young, in how we conserve the natural world.
And that fits nicely into the Gospel reading – not to be like those sorts of Presidents, Prime Ministers, Fat Cats and Bosses who lord it over others – but rather to be a servant king.
But ABofC went on to say that the two things we need to carry this burden, firstly is the Holy Spirit, the help of God. And secondly it is each other.
If we want this nation to be just so, then we cannot leave it to the king to achieve this on his own, we must pray for the king, and also do our bit of service – and we do it in multifarious ways.
The king’s real power, even super power, is his Soft Power. He doesn’t have military, political, judiciary powers – but he has conversations daily with all sorts of people from all walks of life and in that he encourages them in the good that they do. He sets the tone of the conversation.
His life of service and duty – imagine that filtering down into our politicians and all who serve the nation, the people, in our many different ways – imagine a nation filled with people living a life of service that seeks the common good.
And we can help by being with the king in this agenda of creating a community that shows God’s love, God’s power through caring and serving one another, through being a voice for the voiceless and being there for those marginalized, forgotten in our society.
So pray for the Church, that we as a Church may find that unity that shows that love through our acts of service, as we together build the community that God is calling us to –
and pray for the king that he might bear this burden, knowing he is not alone – that both God and His peace and power are with him, and also that we are with him, so that king Charles is empowered to fulfill his vow and serve his nation.
God save the king!
Amen.