Preached in Croydon Minster at Choral Evensong on Sunday 6th February 2022, Accession Day.
Today we mark the Accession of Her
Majesty the Queen. The Accession of the Sovereign is the moment when the
previous king or queen dies and the new one is proclaimed as the new Sovereign.
So, we say the monarch accedes to the
throne.
For the Queen today must be very
poignant, for it is, of course, the anniversary of her own father’s death, King
George VI. It is also the day when her life was no longer her own and a heavy
duty laid upon her, in which she had no choice.
You don’t have to be the most ardent
royalist to acknowledge the Queen’s personal qualities. Throughout her reign the
Queen has been a model of a Christian monarch. She is exemplary in service,
loyalty and duty. Those are three virtues that are widely degraded today.
The Queen, one of whose titles is
Defender of the Faith, shows the Christian understanding of service
modelled on Christ, the King, who took the place of a servant and washed his
disciples’ feet at the Last Supper. The ceremonies of the Royal Maundy derive
from that.
Admittedly monarchs no longer, as they
once did, actually wash the feet of their subjects, that lapsed in the
seventeenth century, but the monetary offering recognises the service older men
and women have offered to their communities in their lives.
The Queen’s loyalty to her nation,
and the Commonwealth, is revealed in her tireless commitment to her work, even
as she reaches a great age and length of reign. Her loyalty to her people and
nation is shown in the way she understands her place within the constitution of
this country, where she has, as the constitutional historian Walter Bagehot put
it in the nineteenth century, ‘the right to be consulted, the right to
encourage, the right to warn’. Loyalty is about fidelity, faithfulness,
sticking with what you have committed to. That’s undergirds being a baptised
and confirmed Christian, it’s at the heart of Christian marriage: ‘til death us
do part’.
The Queen’s sense of duty
is legendary. Repeatedly she has put her own preferences to one side to
undertake her role. There is something deeply Christian in this. It is a
reminder for Christian disciples: my life
is not just about me, and yours is not just about you. In an age where self
is put first, duty says ‘my
preference is not as important as seeking your
wellbeing’ and I will stick at that.
Why does she do all this? Couldn’t she
just take off her crown, slip off her royal slippers, stick her feet up and
lounge around palaces all day?
I suspect the Queen knows all too well
the words of Jesus Christ, the servant king, who was speaking about John the
Baptist when he said ‘what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft
clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.’ (Matthew
11.8).
True Christian service doesn’t just get exercised
in your home, whether that’s a royal palace or a flat in Croydon, or amongst
people you like: true Christian service looks out beyond the comfort zone and
is out and about, meeting and serving ‘all sorts and conditions of men’, as did
Jesus.
A Christian sovereign has a high calling
to be the ruler, the focus of national unity, the receiver of tribute, but also
not to behave as the rulers of the Gentiles who, as Jesus says, ‘lord it over[the
people]…it shall not be so among you’. (Matthew 20.25b)
What I am saying is that in being the
Queen, the Head of State, which she has been for 70 years today, we see in
Elizabeth, our Sovereign Lady, a fellow Christian working out what it means to
be a follower of Jesus in her life and context. And she has done that in the
glare of publicity. May we all be encouraged by the example of our
sister-in-Christ.
Tonight, how might you reflect on what service,
loyalty and duty looks like in your life: amongst people you relate to and work
with; people you spend time with and people you love. How do you serve them?
How are you loyal to them? How are you dutiful to them?
I hope we can all join tonight in
praying for our Queen, giving thanks for her service, loyalty and duty these
past 70 years, and commit ourselves to the loyal, dutiful service of those
around us.
Let us pray:
O LORD our God, who upholdest and
governest all things by the word of thy power: Receive our humble prayers for
our Sovereign Lady ELIZABETH, as on this day, set over us by thy grace and
providence to be our Queen; and, together with her, bless, we beseech thee,
Charles Prince of Wales, and all the Royal Family; that they, ever trusting in
thy goodness, protected by thy power, and crowned with thy gracious and endless
favour, may long continue before thee in peace and safety, joy and honour, and
after death may obtain everlasting life and glory, by the merits and mediation
of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and
reigneth ever one God, world without end. Amen.
ALMIGHTY God, who rulest over all the
kingdoms of the world, and dost order them according to thy good pleasure: We
yield thee unfeigned thanks, for that thou wast pleased, as on this day, to set
thy Servant our Sovereign Lady, Queen ELIZABETH, upon the Throne of this Realm.
Let thy wisdom be her guide, and let thine arm strengthen her; let truth and
justice, holiness and righteousness, peace and charity, abound in her days;
direct all her counsels and endeavours to thy glory, and the welfare of her
subjects; give us grace to obey her cheerfully for conscience sake, and let her
always possess the hearts of her people; let her reign be long and prosperous,
and crown her with everlasting life in the world to come; through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.
O GOD the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay
to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all
hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly union and
concord: that, as there is but one Body, and one Spirit, and one hope of our
calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all; so we
may henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of
truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth
glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Joining our prayers with Our Blessed
Lady, Mary, Queen of Heaven, with St John the Baptist, St George the Martyr, St
Edward the Confessor, St Edmund, king and martyr, we say the Grace.
The grace…
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