What did you make of the coronation then? It was fascinating wasn’t it? Two hours of mystery, sacredness and the turning of another page of British history as Charles III was crowned the 62nd monarch of this country, the oldest person to be coronated in our nation’s story.
The President of our Methodist Conference wrote this prayer for the coronation:
Heavenly King, Almighty God;
We thank you for the call that you place on the life of each disciple.
As we discern all that you desire of us, we pray for King Charles III and ask that the Coronation be a time for the nations to unite in recognising that he is called into your service and ordained to the task of leading and serving us all.
We pray too for Queen Camilla and all members of the Royal Family, asking that each fulfil their roles such that all people might flourish.
We ask this in the Name of our Servant King, Jesus.
What themes will you remember from the coronation service?
First, the call to serve. Remember how the service began:
A young person greeted the King and said “Your Majesty,
as children of the Kingdom of God we welcome you
in the name of the King of Kings.
And the King replied:
In his name, and after his example, I come not to be served but to serve.
Service. Service to people. Service in the name of him who showed us what real service is like. I also liked this prayer said by the King:
God of compassion and mercy
whose Son was sent not to be served but to serve,
give grace that I may find in thy service perfect freedom
and in that freedom knowledge of thy truth.
Grant that I may be a blessing to all thy children, of every faith and conviction, that together we may discover the ways of gentleness
and be led into the paths of peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The call to serve. The Archbishop of Canterbury had it right saying:
“We are here to crown a King, and we crown a King to serve.
“What is given today is for the gain of all.”
And at the very strange bit behind a screen our king was anointed to serve us…
Be your hands anointed with holy oil.
Be your breast anointed with holy oil.
Be your head anointed with holy oil,
as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed.
And as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so may you be anointed, blessed, and consecrated King over the peoples, whom the Lord your God has given you to rule and govern; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Isaiah 42 is a fabulous passage:
42 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
5 Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
6 I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
Isaiah 42 tells us what servant leadership is going to involve. It has four characteristics. Number one, it’s calm. It’s not shouty or showy. There’s no crying out or raising the voice. It’s trustworthy, not manipulative. Number two, it’s kind. It doesn’t take advantage of those who are damaged, like a bruised reed, or struggling, like a dimly burning candle. It sees a role for everyone in shaping a community where all can flourish. Number three, it’s resilient. It won’t grow faint or be crushed. It knows pursuing truth will provoke enemies. It knows there’ll be days when it seems it’s all come to nothing. It doesn’t lose heart. And number four, it exercises its role with a special concern for those on the edge of society. If you imagine the sixth century before Christ, being sight-impaired, languishing in a dungeon, or dwelling in any other kind of poverty or entrapment were pretty lonesome places to be. Such social locations weren’t generally a priority concern for a leader of the time. Put the four characteristics together, and we have something Isaiah calls justice.
All four of these characteristics of leadership and of justice – calm, kindness, resilience and compassion – are saying, ‘This is something new. Something different. Something unusual. Something remarkable.’
But there’s one other dimension to Isaiah 42. See how much this passage has to say about the relationship of the servant to God. ‘My servant,’ the chapter starts, ‘whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.’ Then it says, ‘I have put my spirit upon him.’ Later it adds, ‘I have taken you by the hand and kept you.’ These are intimate words.
So perhaps the bit behind the screen was the most important bit for King Charles — maybe. The Archbishop in an article I read said “This is the most intimate moment of the coronation service — when the King comes face to face with the King of Kings.”King Charles is a man of faith, of deep convictions, he had a good teacher to prepare him for monarchy after all. He’s waited 70 years for it. He’s told us he will endeavour to serve us with loyalty, respect and love. And like the job description of Isaiah’s servant he is encouraging us to build community.
I read this as well this week: “You have a man who genuinely in all the ways that he possibly can, and very quietly in many ways, has helped a huge number of things to happen. He is trying to make sense of a religious teaching.” And I heard someone on the BBC coverage when they started talking about it ad infinitum that his wife says he’s a man who wants to change the world. And the commentator said this will not be a caretaker monarchy, this is a man with a mission.
Isn’t it amazing that a lot of the elements we saw in the coronation go back to when Edgar was crowned in Bath Abbey at Pentecost 973, that some of those bits of furniture and regalia were ancient and that Penny Mourdant managed to hold that sword aloft for so long! But most of all, a largely non religious country were reminded of faithfulness and servanthood as a response to God and of the embodiment of servanthood in Jesus the servant king, whose throne was a cross, and whose crown was a crown of thorns. The King of Kings, Jesus Christ, was anointed not to be served, but to serve. He creates the unchangeable law that with the privilege of power comes the duty to serve to quote the Archbishop again.
What has witnessing a coronation done to us? Hopefully reignited in us the call to serve. What a different country we would be if we all tried to make a difference.
What different churches we would be if we put service at the heart of our life again. What a happy and glorious reign King Charles III will have if service, coming not to be served but to serve like his Lord is not just a one day promise but a life long commitment to justice, integrity, and peace.
“It is pretty fundamental that much of what we have to say about monarchy is depersonalised. A monarch is not elected; we do not choose from a list of candidates. Our experience of monarchy, however, and our sense of this particular monarch really matter. What is monarchy without the person of the monarch?
Constitutional realities and principles of precedent, of course, underpin so much of how we might describe the monarchy; but equally, by definition, monarchy is never abstract. In each monarch we see a personality, a life, an imagination, laid at the service of the people. We cannot love a system, but we can love a person. Similarly, for the full symbolic importance of monarchy to come alive, we have to have monarchs who make it credible.
On her 21st birthday in 1947, the then Princess Elizabeth made a declaration that would come ultimately to be seen as the leitmotif of her reign: “I declare before you all”, she said, “that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.” Five years later, in her Christmas message before her Coronation, Queen Elizabeth II asked for her people’s prayers precisely for that purpose.
Concluding a message to her people after the weekend of her platinum jubilee our late Queen signed herself, “Your Servant, Elizabeth R”. In the Kings first address, he spoke at length of the late Queen’s life of devoted service, which His Majesty renewed for himself before promising “to serve you with loyalty, respect, and love, as I have throughout my life”.
The theological roots of this kind of leadership are rooted in Jesus’s own ministry.
Of all the gifts a monarchy can give contemporary culture, insisting that the highest office in the land, consecrated to rule, is most fully expressed in the service of the vulnerable is one of the greatest.”
(Church Times, April 2023)
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