Sermons
Christ the King
Pilate asked Jesus, are you the king of the Jews?
I’ve always felt some sympathy for Pontius Pilate as he is portrayed by John’s gospel. A busy man with better things to do than arbitrate in some religious debate amongst the uncivilised people over whom he has power, caught between a baying mob who on the one hand claim to be following their religious laws in calling for Jesus’ death and on the other pretend to a loyalty to Pilate’s own king, Caesar. Though taking the time to ask Jesus a few questions, Pilate is clearly uninterested in all the fuss this king of the Jews has stirred up and literally washed his hands of the whole affair. But in the short encounter between Jesus and Pilate one also gets the sense that Pilate has been made uncomfortable by Jesus, with his oblique answers and talk of a kingdom that is not of this world. Kings and Queens through history have often found themselves uncomfortable with their encounters with the truth about God which is fully revealed in the life death and resurrection of Christ the King. And this awkward relationship between earthly powers and the prophets of the coming kingdom has often been particularly acute within the Church of England, which has a monarch as supreme governor, no less (and perhaps no more).
As a church we have probably prayed more by name for kings and queens than for anybody else. The monarch is crowned through the ministry of the church and through the centuries special liturgical provision has been appended to the prayer book for services on the day of King Charles the first’s martyrdom, for the happy deliverance of the fifth of November, and on the 20th of June (it would be interesting to know if anybody here might know why that date was celebrated). As well as these special services the prayer book has many many prayers for the sovereign and the royal family, and some of these have survived in somewhat mangled form right down to today’s Common Worship. I would like to take one of these honoured kings and reflect briefly on the his witness and to raise a few questions about the place of kings or queens in the life of the church in our own day.
You will know that Charles met his death most bravely, and that his moral purity is justly celebrated. He is rightly called a martyr because it was his defence of the church, of the catholic heritage of the church in England and in particular the necessity of episcopal leadership that led directly to his illegal murder. And we must remember what a horrifying thing it would have been to most people to hear that a king had been killed by his own people - for this was no casual assassination. If Charles ruled by divine right it must have seemed that God had abandoned him in 1649, by which time much of the Church over which he was supreme governor had collapsed at the hands of the Presbyterians. But Charles was, of course, no nearer the divine than the rest of fallen humanity, and his programme of re-catholicising the traditions of the Church of England with the help of the great high church Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, had caused great division in the country. Calvinism may have become unpopular in certain quarters at the start of the seventeenth century, but a great many more people had jumped on the bandwagon of the vilification of what had now to be called roman catholicism (a title that church of course does not like to this day). Charles’ financial and foreign policies were also unpopular and people thought it more than a coincidence that the King who was married to a catholic presided over very severe punishments handed out to Puritans by the Star Chamber and the High Commission whilst catholics seemed to be getting off quite lightly. Charles’ attempts to promote the catholic Anglican cause in Scotland led directly to that country’s turn to Presbyterianism, and the civil war which began in 1642 led to their temporary triumph in England. So King Charles died for his belief in the true church of which we are all members and without his witness perhaps the catholic cause within the national church in this country would have died with him. He is honoured for his witness to the kingship of Christ, not for the role he found himself playing by dint of his royal birth.
But what of royalty and the church today? Are their actions interpreted principally as religious ones, as Christian actions? If the Queen dies might we want to proclaim a national day of fasting and prayer? I suspect that would appear ridiculous, and that is because, despite all the nation’s love of their royal family, they are no longer seen, and would probably not wish to be seen, as religious leaders. The man who may become Charles III is noted for saying he would be uncomfortable with the title defender of the faith (as any protestant should be, the title having been given to Henry VIII by the Pope for his defence of the seven sacraments) and religion is increasingly seen as something an individual has the right to choose, but what if the sovereign were to choose? and what would be the correct allegiance of a member of the Church of England if its supreme governor were to become a muslim or a hindu or indeed an atheist? royalty are not guaranteed faith. Perhaps our kings and Queens will gradually become more like Pontius Pilate, more likely to see yet more religious dispute as outside of their remit to pronounce upon, how easy after all would it be fro Prince Charles to promote the Christian faith in this age or indeed to defend it. What response would the media have had if the heir to the throne, the supreme governor-to-be of the Church has publicly backed the lady who has been told not to wear her cross to work at British Airways? The assumption is that the Prince like most other public leaders have to be rather wary of straying inot the religious sphere, incase they are accused of trespass, just as bishops are when they comment on politics, and yet the Church of England is incredibly mixed up with the organs of state, we have bishops in the senior legislative assembly, the prime minister involved in choosing those bishops, and a mock parliament called the General Synod whose decisions pass through Westminster.
Now, what about that other king, The one whose kingship is not demonstrated through political power, the one with the crown made out of thorns, the one nailed to his throne?
I’d like to finish with a fable. I’d like you to imagine that you are Head Verger of St Paul’s Cathedral and you are waiting for a very important service to begin that you have been planning for months, the newly crowned King Charles III is to attend and everything is going like clockwork. The clergy are standing at the door wearing their finest robes, the great and the good - and the token poor - are inside the cathedral, eyeing each other, very happy to be there, and someone taps on your shoulder, and its Jesus…what to do? Being English and practical and knowing where authority lies, you go to tell the Dean. Mr Dean, you say, er…Jesus is here. This is no time for theology man! he says, no, you say but he really is here, he’s come back, he said he would, and there is a long pause before Mr Dean says, what is he wearing? Well, you stammer nothing actually, nothing at all, just like that time on the cross. And Mr Dean sees the cars approaching, he looks down the red carpet covering the noble steps, sees the photographers getting ready and the security men, and sees over his shoulder behind the verger that man with no clothes, and has to decide what to do, and he says ‘You’ll have to tell that man to wait, look the real King is coming, he’s almost here! Tell the other one to wait somewhere, preferably out of sight.’
Pilate was caught for a moment pondering the notion of kingship, and in my little fable Mr Dean finds himself caught between allegiances, the Church of England is permanently caught in the tension between its privileged access to poltical power, and the proclamation of the kingdom that is not of this world. A final thought: part of the problem, and the tension, of course comes from being an established church, which is precisely why we shouldn’t be one.