TWENTY FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
(September 21st) 2022
(Sunday following the death of Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)
READINGS:
Jeremiah 4: 11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1 Timothy 1: 12-17
Luke 15: 1- 10
I am however ignoring
the readings for this week
For all of us this is
a week that will remain implanted in our memories. I operate usually with a
hard and fast rule of not diverting attention from at least a sample of the
lectionary readings on a Sunday. But flexibility too is a rule, and just
occasionally current events overtake normality. Let me say too that I speak as
a ridiculous combination of socialist and monarchist, which makes about as much
sense as anything else that hall marks our strange dash from go to whoa.
“A life well lived.” “A
lifelong promise kept.” “One of the most inspirational women this world will
ever know.” These are the sorts of phrases that we have heard over and again, and
justifiably so, these last 72 hours or so. Today we are conscious with citizens
of all the countries that we call Common-wealth that a life has passed through ours,
no matter how remotely, and that our lives have been the better for it.
For most of us in this
place, whatever Queen Elizabeth represented, she alone has represented it. She
has been the embodiment of dignity, devotion, and unwavering integrity, even
through the darkest and shakiest days of her long reign.
As the Queen has
become increasingly frail in the months since she farewelled the husband that
she clearly loved we have known that this moment would inevitably come. If I
may digress with a personal tale for a moment, some of you will know but I am
the possessor of a 100 year old mother. I'm not sure that “possessor” is the
technical term, but it will have to do. Throughout her life, since the dark
days of World War Two, when the Princess Elizabeth, alongside her father,
sought to inspire the confidence and hope of her people in Britain and to a
less direct degree throughout the Commonwealth, my mother has looked to Elizabeth
with admiration, even one might say “devotion.” The queen I should add was four
years her junior, but there was no doubt that the older subject was inspired by
the younger inspiration.
With some apprehension
I checked on Friday morning to see if my mother, who I contact twice weekly by
Zoom, was aware that her inspiration had died. “Well, of course,” said Mrs 100,
“What do you expect? She was 96 you know.”
But that aside, and if
we return at least loosely to the subject of gospel, if not our gospel or other
readings for the day, one of the essential ingredients of the incarnation of
God in Christ, God in Jesus the Christ, is the absolute correlation between the
command, or what we call Word of God, and the outcome of that command, that Word.
Be healed, says Jesus, and a person is healed. Be reconciled, and humanity is
reconciled to its Creator.
In the events of the
last few days, we have seen the closure of a life which has exemplified, I would
dare to say almost to the maximum possible within those confines of being human
but not divine, a life that has exemplified that same absolute integrity. If we
dug beneath the surface of many of the words spoken these past three days or so
they would point to Queen Elizabeth’s life as one spent to the greatest degree
humanly possible in the embodiment of integrity.
I think one of the
reasons we as a people are so deeply moved by the death of Queen Elizabeth is because,
however much we knew it was coming, we were not ready for the closure of a life
that so completely connected word and action, promise and implementation. We
knew this end was coming, particularly since we saw a suddenly frail old woman,
masked and in mourning clothes, lamenting the death of her eccentric but
clearly beloved husband. In that moment not so very long ago we were reminded
in a different way that royalty are deeply human.
To reflect in this way,
and I might add so inadequately, on the life and death of Queen Elizabeth is
not in any way to suggest that she was perfect. Were she to sit with us I’m
sure she would be the first to assure us that she had many flaws. There was
much criticism levelled at her at the time of the death of that noble-tragic
figure, that human figure, the Princess of Wales. The Firm seemed for a while
to be irreparably damaged, yet a phoenix rose from the ashes, and in the years
since we have seen a new model of inspiration arise despite the flaws and the
humanness of the principle actors.
Her Majesty would demur
if she were to hear much of the praise that has been directed her way these
past three days (though she may have approved the warm thoughts of Paddington Bear).
I want to say now, in the context of liturgy, only that it seems to me she has
thrown herself wilfully, constantly on the mercies of God, the strengthening,
uplifting mercies of God, as she has sought to be a person living for others.
She had some private life but woefully little, and she knew that would be the
case from the moment at such a tender age when she promised to live in the
service of her people.
In living out that
promise she has modelled the central ingredients of faith, ensuring that she
served God and her people not in her own strength but in the strength that God
gave her. She sought to change with the changing world, if sometimes
reluctantly, while retaining the essentials of her role. She threw herself
again and again on the strength and the mercy of the God she knew was primarily
her Master. She drew attention away from herself to the needs of her people, seeking
always that help of God. Our lives are, thank God, the richer for it.
As it happens, I
believe at least one part of her legacy is that our lives will be richer not
only because she has in some strange way passed through them, but because she
has formed and nurtured, sometimes in cauldrons of struggle, an heir in King
Charles III who will continue to serve, to lead, and to inspire all who care to
look his way.
So for now we simply
give thanks for an inspirational life that is closed, a life of immeasurable
integrity, that has passed through our lives, and for which our lives are all
the richer. For now we can be deeply grateful for all the inspiration that
Queen Elizabeth has been.
“May ‘flights of
angels sing thee to thy rest’” said King Charles to his late mother in his
first King’s Speech yesterday. To which I would add those beautiful words from
the last rites, “May your portion this day be in peace, and your dwelling in
the heavenly Jerusalem. Amen.
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