One of the most traumatic times in British history, certainly in early modern British history, were the Civil Wars that were fought in the British Isles in the mid- 17^th Century. And although those wars raged on into the 1650s, I don’t think there can be any doubt that, certainly in England, the most famous, or perhaps infamous, event of those wars was the execution of King Charles I in January 1649.  

I think perhaps in many people’s understanding, those Civil Wars were wars of religion, but that’s not really the whole story. Religious differences between the opposing parties did play a part in the Civil Wars but they were fought for political and economic reasons too. And if we had to choose one primary cause for those Wars, it would almost certainly be politics, essentially, the question of who had ultimate authority in the country, the king or parliament. And central to this argument was Charles’ firm, one might almost say fanatical, belief in the Divine Right of Kings. That, as an anointed king, Charles’ authority came directly from God and therefore he was answerable to no earthly authority and was free to act and to rule as he saw fit. And in the end it was Charles’ intransigence on this issue, his unwillingness to compromise and come to terms, even after he’d lost the war in military terms, that led to his downfall and to him losing both his crown and his head.  

I think that, for most people today, Charles’ belief in the Divine Right of Kings, let alone his fanaticism about it, would seem quite absurd and even frightening because it is a form of religious fanaticism. To all intents and purposes, it’s like saying, “I am God’s anointed one so I can do anything I like.” And we know only too well how dangerous that can be. But from a Christian point of view we should view it, and anything like it, with deep suspicion too. And if that makes me sound like a 17^th Century Parliamentary Puritan, so be it; I say it anyway because we know that there is only one divinely appointed King and it’s the one whose kingship we celebrate today, Christ the King.  

As Christians we know that Christ’s kingship is divinely ordained because he told us so himself and, as Christians, we believe his words to be true. And among the very last words he spoke to his disciples before his Ascension were, 

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” 

And who can give such authority but God the Father? And as Christians we must know that, and recognise Christ’s divinely appointed kingship.  

So why is it then that we so often treat Christ as though he was Charles I and we were his parliamentary adversaries? Because we do. We do it regularly and we do it in so many ways. We do it every time we disobey his commandments and think it doesn’t matter. We do it every time we twist his words to make them fit with our own ideas about how things are or should be.  

I could give you many examples, but I’ll just mention a couple. I well remember speaking to some Church members about the problem of what to do about people who act in ways that are not only contrary to Christ’s teaching but do a great deal of harm to the Church and the faith into the bargain. And one of them said they should be kicked out of the Church. They should be thrown out, and they should never be allowed to come back again. So I asked where penance and forgiveness fitted into that way of thinking. And the answer I got was, accompanied by the thump of a fist on a table,  

“Some things are unforgivable” 

True. But Christ said the only unforgivable sin is a sin against the Spirit. We were talking about sins of the flesh (let the reader or hearer understand). And in those circumstances, didn’t Christ refuse to condemn but only instruct to “Go, and sin no more”? And when people, Church people, Christians who acclaim Christ as their divinely appointed King, get on their moral high horses like this, what are they doing other than denying his kingly authority over all things by usurping his kingly authority as judge? ‘It doesn’t matter what Christ said, we’ll decide who can be forgiven and who can’t’. 

Another very common way in which people in the Church deny Christ’s kingly authority is by twisting his words so that Christ says what they think he should have said and want him to have said. And one of the most common ways they do this is in relation to the words Christ used at the Last Supper.  

The first, that is the earliest, record we have of the Last Supper, and the institution of the Eucharist, isn’t in the Gospels but in St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. And St Paul says this: 

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”  

St Paul says that this is the teaching he received. We think 1 Corinthians was written sometime between 53 and 55 AD, so the argument that a belief in the Real Presence, that the bread and wine in the sacrament of Holy Communion is the body and blood of Christ, is a medieval invention of the Catholic Church is blown out if the water immediately. It isn’t. It’s been the belief and teaching of the Church from the very beginning. But of course, some people still argue about the meaning of Christ’s words. Even though scripture clearly states that Christ said the bread and the wine is his body and blood, some people, many people in fact, say that’s not what he really meant. They say that what he really meant was that the bread and wine signify or symbolise his body and blood. But that argument doesn’t really hold water either.  

The New Testament was originally written in Greek and in Greek the words for ‘is’, ‘sign’ and ‘symbol’ are all different (estin, semeion and parabole actually). And the Greek word estin means exactly the same as the English word ‘is’, it’s a verb that expresses a state of being. So when people argue about this, surely what it amounts to is a challenge to Christ’s kingly authority over his Church expressed in this way: 

‘Christ said this is my body, this is my blood, but we say, no he didn’t. Or if he did, that’s not what he meant.’ 

On whose authority do people change Christ’s words, or the meaning of his words? On whose authority do people change Christ’s teaching? Christ has divinely appointed kingly authority over all things, so on whose authority do people usurp Christ’s kingly authority over anything?   

Those are just two of many examples of the ways in which people in the Church, Christians who acclaim Christ as their King, then both deny and usurp his kingly authority. And what are we doing when we do this? We call the Church the Body of Christ, and we say that Christ is the head of the body. So when we deny and usurp his authority, his headship of the Church, to all intents and purposes, aren’t we’re cutting the head off Christ’s body? In 1649, the agents of Parliament cut the head off a king, and took his authority for themselves, in large part because he claimed to be a divinely appointed king. How often have we and do we cut the head off the body of our King, a King whom we know has been divinely appointed, so that we can take his authority for ourselves?  

Next Sunday is Advent Sunday. It’s the start of a new Church year and the time of year when we look forward to the two comings of Christ. We look forward to Christmas and our celebration of Christ’s first coming into the world at his Incarnation and we look forward too, to his return, his second coming, when he will come again in all his glory. But we must never forget that when Christ does return in glory he will come as our judge. So Advent is a time too when we’re called to make ready and to be ready for Christ’s return.  It’s a time when we have to think about how Christ will judge us.  

After the Restoration of the Monarchy in this country in 1660, those who were considered regicides, those who’d played an active role in the execution of Charles I, had to face the wrath of his son, Charles II. Some were executed, some were imprisoned for life, some manged to escape the new king’s vengeance by fleeing overseas. A few were even exhumed and were posthumously executed, beheaded themselves in spite of the fact that they were already dead! When Christ returns, there will be nowhere to flee to escape his judgement and justice so we will have no option other than to stand before him, face the music, and get what’s coming to us. We all hope and pray that Christ won’t judge us too harshly and that we’ll receive the eternal reward promised to all those faithful subjects who’ve done their best to be loyal to our divinely appointed King. But what will be the justice meted out to us if we’ve been amongst those who’ve cut off the head of our King so that we can take his authority for ourselves?   

Amen.  

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Propers for Christ the King, Sunday 23rd November 2025

Entrance Antiphon 

How worthy is the Lamb who was slain, 
to receive power and divinity, 
and wisdom and strength and honour. 
To him belong glory and power for ever and ever. 

The Collect 

Almighty ever-living God, 
whose will is to restore all things in your beloved Son,  

the King of the universe, 
grant, we pray, 
that the whole creation, set free from slavery, 
may render your majesty service, 
and ceaselessly proclaim your praise. 
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, 
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
God, for ever and ever. 

Amen. 

The Readings 

2 Samuel 5:1-3  

Psalm 122:1-2, 4-5 

Colossians 1:12-20 

Luke 23:35-43 

Prayer after Communion  

Having received the food of immortality, 
we ask, O Lord, 
that, glorying in obedience to the commands of Christ, the King of the universe, 
we may live with him eternally in his heavenly Kingdom. 
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.  

Amen. 

Apart from my teenage years, I’ve been going to church all my life. That being so, I must have heard thousands of sermons over the years, and yet I can remember very few of them. One sermon I have always remembered though is one I heard preached many years ago, before I stopped going to church during my teenage years in fact. And what I remember about this particular sermon is a question that our parish priest, Fr Noel Pyatt, asked during the sermon. He asked that, if Christianity were to be suddenly made illegal in this country, and to be a Christian meant running the risk of being arrested and imprisoned, and perhaps tortured and even executed if we weren’t willing to renounce our faith, how many of us would be prepared to remain faithful? He asked if we would, in the face of such persecution, be willing to openly declare our faith in Christ, or would we try to hide it, perhaps thinking that it doesn’t really matter what we say because God would know that we still believe and so if we denied our faith to save our own skin God would understand and forgive us.

I was reminded of this sermon earlier this week when Fr Alex and I were at a synod of the local Chapter of SSC, the Society of the Holy Cross. One of our brethren has recently been in Ghana to admit some local clergy to the Society, and he was telling us about some of the quite amazing things and people he met there. He told us about a couple of priests who’d made a 9-hour journey, by motorbike as I recall, simply to be admitted to the Society. And he also told us about an old lady who walks for an hour every Sunday to go to church, and presumably back home again afterwards. She is 90 years old. We’re not talking here about people who are facing persecution for their faith, but these stories reminded me of Fr Pyatt’s sermon because these people show a quite remarkable level of commitment to their faith, a level of commitment that, it pains me to say, is sadly lacking in this country and among the people of our churches.

Just think about what those people in Ghana do for the sake of their faith. Two priests who travel for 9 hours, over roads that in many places are little more than dirt tracks, just to share fellowship with their brother clergy. A 90-year-old woman who walks for an hour, 2 hours in fact, every Sunday to go to church. Now compare that to the things we hear so often from people who come to our churches, or often don’t come to our churches, in fact. I can’t come because the service is too early, or too late as the case may be. It’s too cold, either outside or in church.

I didn’t want to come out because it was raining. I was out last night and didn’t want to get up. I can’t go because there are no buses and it’s too far to walk. I’m not coming because I don’t like what the vicar said in his sermon last week (or maybe they just don’t like the vicar!). I’m not coming because I don’t like what so and so did or said or the way they spoke to me. I’m not coming if we’ve got no music, I’m not coming if there’s a baptism on. I’m not coming because there are too many kids and it’s too noisy. I’ve heard all of these things, and many more, used by people who call themselves Christians as excuses for not coming to church.

If we think about these and the many other trivial excuses that people in this country use for not coming to church to worship the Lord, which is the obligation of all confirmed Christians to do every Sunday I must add, and compare them to the stories of the lengths those Ghanian Christians are prepared to go to for their faith, I ask you, in all honesty, which of them do you think would remain faithful in the face of real persecution on account of their faith?

People are so easily put off doing that most basic, and simple, of all Chistian practices, just coming to church to join with their fellow Christians in worshipping the Lord. I’m sure that those who do use such excuses for not coming to church do think that it doesn’t really matter because God will understand our reasons and forgive us. But how can we square that belief with Jesus’ own words;

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

And;

“For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”

How can we read these words of the Lord himself and doubt that simply saying we’re Christians is not enough? How can we read them and not understand that we have to show that we’re Christians by our actions. And how can read them and we think that we can deny our faith when it suits us and that this will have no consequences for us with the Lord?

If we want to call ourselves Christians with any real integrity, we have to show it by our actions, and this includes remaining faithful and doing what the Lord calls us to do no matter what; even if we don’t feel like it, even if it is inconvenient, even if it means doing things we’d rather not do, even if it means remaining faithful in the face of persecution.

Our readings this morning speak very clearly about this. 2 Maccabees tells a story about remaining faithful to God in the face of persecution and in the Epistle, St Paul urges us to keep the word of the Lord and do what the Lord commands, so that we might ‘be delivered from wicked and evil men’, from those who have no faith. And the reward for such faithfulness is the resurrection to eternal life. But we know this, so why do some people find it so easy to be unfaithful, and for the slightest of reasons? Perhaps it’s because there’s a little bit of the Sadducee in us?

As we’re told in the Gospel, the Sadducees, didn’t believe in the resurrection to eternal life, and in an attempt to discredit Jesus, they used an argument about marriage from the Law of Moses to try and prove that there could be no resurrection. But what their argument betrayed was an inability to look beyond their own experience and view of the world. To them, the law must apply to those in heaven as it did to those on earth, and if it didn’t, or couldn’t, then there could be no heaven, at least for mortals, and so there could be no resurrection. But as Jesus explained, the law that applies to people on earth no longer applies to those in heaven, because they are not mortals any longer but heavenly creatures. They don’t need the law to keep them in God’s ways because they’re in the very presence of God where nothing that is not holy can possibly be.

Again, we must know that. But even so, I do think there is something of the Sadducee in us because if we think about the weak, pitifully weak at times, excuses we can use for not remaining faithful to the Lord, what are they but an indication of our inability to look beyond the here and now. Yes, we want heaven and yes, we know what we have to do to get there, but right now I don’t want to do what it takes to get there because there’s something else I’d rather do instead. Or perhaps it’s not really convenient for us to be faithful at that particular time, but then, never mind, we can always be faithful again another time can’t we? Or perhaps we simply don’t like that particular part of faithfulness and say, ‘Well, on the whole I don’t mind doing this, but I draw a line at that.’

Being a Christian is this country these days is not easy, if it ever was, but we don’t have the kind of persecution that Christians have often suffered and still do suffer in some parts of the world. Even so, for some, remaining faithful to Christ seems to be very difficult when that clashes with their own comfort and convenience, let alone the mild difficulties we can face on account of our faith. So, just how committed to our faith are we, really? What would we be prepared to do to show our faith and faithfulness? Would any of us be prepared to spend 9 hours travelling over dirt tracks just to share some fellowship with fellow members of the Body of Christ? Would any of us be prepared to walk for an hour to get to church every Sunday morning? Just how much are we, and would we be prepared to do and to go through for the sake of Christ who gave up everything and suffered so much for us?

Amen

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Propers for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Remembrance Sunday) 9th November 2025

Entrance Antiphon
Let my prayer come into your presence. Incline your ear to my cry for help, O Lord.

The Collect
Almighty and merciful God, graciously keep from us all adversity, so that, unhindered in mind and body alike, we may pursue in freedom of heart the things that are yours. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

The Readings
2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14
Psalm 17:1, 5-6, 8, 15
2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5
Luke 20:27-38

Prayer after Communion
Nourished by this sacred gift, O Lord, we give you thanks and beseech your mercy, that, by the pouring forth of your Spirit, the grace of integrity may endure in those your heavenly power has entered. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.