In the news this week there was a brief story about the Queen granting a Royal Warrant to her favourite tipple, Dubonnet. In the aftermath of that, sales of the drink skyrocketed. The supermarket chain, Waitrose, for example, said that sales had almost doubled, and the drink quickly sold out. Even Amazon, it seems, are struggling to keep up with the surge in demand for Dubonnet that’s followed the granting of the Royal Warrant. I must admit, all this brought a smile to my face because Dubonnet was also a favourite of our late friend, Fr Neville Ashton. But it was something he only started drinking after he heard that it was the favourite drink of the Queen and her mother, the late Queen Mother. But why should people do this kind of thing? Why should people want to do what the Queen does?
We live in what we might call an age of celebrity don’t we? And we only have to look at the programmes on the television to see that. Celebrity MasterChef; I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here and Strictly Come Dancing to name just a few. No doubt some of you will remember the original Come Dancing, a show in which ordinary members of the public took part in a dancing competition. That the programme’s been re-invented as Strictly Come Dancing, a dance competition for celebrities shows, I think, the interest, though perhaps obsession would be a better word, that our society seems to have for celebrities.
In a way, it’s quite easy to understand why people are so interested in celebrities. Celebrities are rich and famous, they’re seen as icons of fashion, and they enjoy extravagant lifestyles, and people who don’t enjoy those things, quite naturally, want them. So people see or hear what celebrities do and they try to copy them and do the same.
But the Queen isn’t really what we’d usually call a celebrity is she? She might be rich and famous, she might have palaces to live in but still, she’s not a celebrity in the usual sense of that word. The Queen hasn’t become rich and famous as an entertainer or sports star and we’re highly unlikely to see her on one of the celebrity TV shows that fill our screens. The Queen’s lifestyle may be very different to ours but it’s not one that we can aspire to because she’s the reigning monarch of this country. Anyone else who wanted to be that would no doubt find themselves in some serious trouble. People who’ve wanted to be that have often found themselves in the Tower of London where they’ve not enjoyed a very good lifestyle at all, and usually a very short lifespan too! So why do people want to do what the Queen does, even if it’s only in a small way, such as drinking what the Queen drinks?
I think the reason people do that is because they both respect and admire the Queen. I think people respect and admire the Queen because, despite being involved in politics on a daily basis, she stays out of politics because she makes no personal political statements and doesn’t get involved in political arguments. I think people admire the Queen because she never tries to use the great constitutional power she has, to push her own agenda. And I think above all, people admire the Queen because of her great sense of duty, of putting what she’s called to do, her duty as the Queen, before her own self-interest. And, if we think about these things, do we not see these same qualities in the one we acclaim today, not just as our King, but as the King, the King of all people and all time? Do we not see these qualities in Jesus Christ?
To be honest, it’s difficult to say that Jesus never made political statements, but it would have been impossible for him not to have made political statements given the society he lived in. We have to understand that Jewish society at the time was a theocracy; it was a society run by priests and run according to God’s Law. Jesus said that he had come to fulfil the Law and his teaching was all about keeping the Law, especially the spirit of the Law rather than the letter of the Law. But, as God’s Law and state law were so closely intertwined, a religious statement about God’s Law was, inevitably, also a political statement about the way the land was governed. Perhaps a good example of that is his argument with the scribes and Pharisees about ‘corban’, offerings to God, in which Jesus accused the scribes and Pharisees of,
“…making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
But despite the inevitable political implications of what he said, Jesus’ teaching was always primarily about keeping God’s Law, about people doing what God required of them, not about politics as such.
And he was never partisan. Jesus didn’t go in for what we’d call ‘party politics’, it was simply about keeping the Law and living as God wants and intended us to live. And Jesus’ never made personal statements either because, as he said,
“…I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
There’s no doubt that Jesus could have used the great power he possessed for personal reasons or gain. The story of his temptation in the wilderness, right at the start of his ministry, is all about this very issue and temptation. But Jesus never did succumb to that temptation, he put himself entirely at God’s service. He did his duty, what he was sent to do, regardless of the cost to himself. As St Paul puts it in his Letter to the Philippians;
‘…though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.’
If we look at Jesus and his life in purely human terms, if we take him and his life at face value, there’s really not much to see that would inspire us to follow him or to do what he did. He was, and is, famous, but his fame didn’t bring him any earthly reward; it didn’t make him rich. And his life isn’t one that many, if any, people would aspire to. He was an itinerant preacher who had no home and owned nothing other than the clothes he wore. He was hounded from place to place by the authorities who eventually caught up with him because one of his closest friends betrayed him. And he was put to death in the cruellest way imaginable, and on a false charge of claiming to be the king of the Jews. Who would want to follow such a man or aspire to follow such a life?
And yet we do. And we follow him because of the way he lived and died because it’s through the way he lived and died that he rose again from the dead. It’s because of the way Jesus lived and died that St Paul could say,
‘Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’
It’s because of the way Jesus lived and died and rose again that we can hear the truth in Jesus’ words. It’s because of these things that we can see that his way of life, the way of humility and obedience to God’s will, is the true and only way to live. And so because of these things we can acclaim Jesus as our King and offer him our loyalty, our obedience, and even our lives.
In their refusal to make personal political statements or play party politics, in their abstinence in using power for their own ends, and in their devotion to duty above self-interest, I think there are similarities between Jesus’ life and ministry and our Queen’s reign. But there is also at least one great difference. The Queen, like all people, will die and her reign will come to an end. But Jesus, having died and been raised again from the dead and enthroned as our heavenly King, will never die again and so his reign will never end. And the great incentive for us to follow Christ’s example now is that, when our earthly lives come to an end, the promise of eternal life rests on our willingness to do as he both commanded us to do and he himself did on earth. When that time comes, there will be no other king to turn to, only Christ, the King. His way will be the only way, so I think we’d be wise to get used to following his way now.
Amen.
The Propers for Christ the King can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 