Proverbs 8.1-16, Psalm 121, Luke 22.24-30
Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee
2 June 2022, Keasden; Pentecost, 5 June 2022, Austwick, Clapham
On the 21st April 1947, the occasion of her twenty-first birthday, Princess Elizabeth was with her parents and younger sister on a tour of South Africa. In a speech broadcast on BBC radio from Cape Town, the Princess made this profound vow to all the peoples of what was then still called an Empire:
“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong. But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do: I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.” [1]
In this remarkable, direct statement the young Elizabeth takes full responsibility for her future role as monarch, commits herself completely to a life of public service, and invokes each and every subject to play our part in the outworking of that role. She is fully committed to meeting the high expectations that a people have of their ruler; and in return, she expresses her equally high expectations of her people in their support for her.
In its solemn, purposeful language there is something scriptural-sounding about the Princess’s dedication. It is the language of covenant: covenants being chosen relationships or partnerships in which two parties make binding promises to each other and work together to reach a common goal. Covenants are more than just contracts, for they are relational and personal. Like a marriage covenant, through her Cape Town statement Princess Elizabeth and the people enter into a formal relationship binding themselves to one another in lifelong faithfulness and devotion, committed to work as partners to reach a common goal, which is the the well-being and flourishing of the family of peoples in her care. [2]
In scripture there is always a third party in any covenant between people: and so also here. That third party - actually the first party - is God. “God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it,” says the Princess. And in her first Christmas radio broadcast after her accession to the throne the Queen urged the public, “to pray that God may give me wisdom and strength to carry out the solemn promises I shall be making, and that I may faithfully serve him and you, all the days of my life.” [3] In this covenant we enter as subject people, one of our chief tasks is to pray for our monarch.
It is surely the Queen’s hope and intention that as we pray for her we increasingly grasp her vision for the well-being of the Commonwealth of Nations, and make it our own.
What is that vision? In this year’s Commonwealth Day Message the Queen reminded us of it, saying, “Our family of nations continues to be a point of connection, cooperation and friendship. It is a place to come together to pursue common goals and the common good, providing everyone with the opportunity to serve and benefit.” [4]
There is a humility to The Queen which you see “if you look at her in the footage of a grand service, as she’s arriving — the trumpets sound out, and the grandeur of St Pauls Cathedral and Wren’s glorious apses and arches are all around you — but she remains herself. There’s not a change in her at all.” Major-General Alastair Bruce, a herald and member of the Royal Company of Archers, observes that “she knows she’s in the presence of something greater than herself, and that is projected in the way she handles all the splendour and grandeur that she has to embody — with the recognition that it is aimed at her but not about her.” [5]
And there is a gentle wisdom to The Queen who in the period of her long reign has quietly but insistently turned public dialogue about Britain’s role in the world away from colonialism towards cooperation, away from Empire towards Commonwealth, away from ascendancy towards family. She has governed the Anglican Church in such a way as that now “Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. . . [With her help], gently and assuredly, the Church of England has created an environment for other faith communities — and, indeed, people of no faith — to live freely.” [6]
If we accept that we are in faithful covenant with Elizabeth then we too must remove ourselves from all temptations towards domination, exploitation and alienation of others different from ourselves, and commit to learning the quiet wisdom of a generous spirit open to working for the well-being of all.
There is a line in a poem by R.S. Thomas which says, quite simply, that ‘wisdom must come on foot’. [7] This makes me think of those few special moments in my life when I have been in the same place as The Queen, who has always insisted on walking among the crowds, and how I’ve seen her engaging people along her way, listening generously to each one she meets, offering such wise or comforting or encouraging words as is right for each person. She, like the One she follows, walks among us as one who serves.
‘Wisdom must come on foot’. And so we give grateful thanks today for this exalted One who takes her direction from One infinitely more exalted; and we pray that, in covenant with her, our walk from hereon in may follow her way of wise generosity and gentle goodness; that, accepting our place in the family of peoples she often invokes, in a divided world we, like her, may be a focus for unity every day searching for the common good.
Notes
[1] A speech by the Queen on her 21st Birthday, 1947. The Royal Family website, accessed 29 May 2022.
[2] Whitney Woollard, Covenants: The Backbone of the Bible; Partnerships Between God and People. The Bible Project Blog.
[3] Pat Ashworth, Platinum Jubilee: Advocate, not defender of the faith. Church Times, 27 May 2022.
[4] The Queen's Commonwealth Day Message 2022. The Royal Family website, 14 March 2022.
[5] Pat Ashworth, Platinum Jubilee: Advocate, not defender of the faith. Church Times, 27 May 2022.
[6] Pat Ashworth, Platinum Jubilee: Advocate, not defender of the faith. Church Times, 27 May 2022.
[7] R. S. Thomas, Counterpoint, p.31.
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