The Death Of Our Most Gracious Sovereign Lady - Queen Elizabeth II

The sermon from The Sunday Following The Death Of Our Most Gracious Sovereign Lady - Queen Elizabeth II, 11 September, given by assistant curate The Rev’d Georgina Elsey, is also available here on our Soundcloud.

Lamentations 3.22-26, 31-33

-       “Although he causes grief, he will have compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love”

John 6.35-40

-       “Not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me”

2 Cor 4.16-5.4

-       “We do not lose heart…What is mortal may be swallowed up by life”

May I speak in the name of God, who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Amen. Please be seated.

May I express on behalf of us all great sadness that the Queen has died, and gratitude for her life, work and legacy. The nation mourns, with people gathering outside Royal residences like Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Balmoral. The strikes have been called off, and the Proms cancelled. You will have seen the capital flooded with memorial pictures of her on billboards. We have had our doors open here at St John’s, and people have come to sit in silence, light a candle, and write in a book of condolence. From tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of people will file past her lying at rest at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, then lying in state at Westminster Hall.

I speak to you this morning as a 30 year old woman in awe of the Queen that acceded the throne when my grandparents were teenagers. I also speak to you as a priest of the Church of England, of which she was governor, to whom and all her successors I have sworn loyalty. It is a comfort in our worship this morning that Her Majesty was a devoted Christian, and showing her respect by turning our thoughts to God, and how we can see the life of God through her life, is very fitting. The readings today meet us where we are in national mourning and accession, and so combine our worship of God with our thoughts of the late Queen and our new King.

We begin in Lamentations, a gift to those who grieve, even those like me that do not often turn to poetry. Expressing pain and suffering is a necessary honesty that our faith does not shy away from, and Lamentations guides us in our cries to God about the woundedness of the world. We rightfully lament what we who are left behind have lost to death, the inevitability of our own demise, and our sins that have marred the beauty of precious life.

This is a time when not just our emotions about the Queen, but also our other griefs might be brought to the surface. For example, I am burying my own grandmother on Wednesday, and it is unavoidable that my emotions about both are churned together somewhat. It does give me some comfort however that a presiding memory for me of both women is the incredibly large spectacles they wore in the nineties, which I would not be surprised to see coming back around in fashionable nostalgia.

You will have your own memories of the Queen. When people speak of meeting her, it is always with an impressed affection, such as a former Yeoman of the Guard who told BBC Lincolnshire yesterday that the Queen would give a distinctive handshake before showing interest in people's lives, as part of a "wonderful" ability to calm even the most nervous of recipients; he said, "She would give their hand a nice little squeeze and look them straight in the eye." You may also be remembering other people you have lost. So we sit in the uncomfortable space of shared and also private memories, full of joy and pain.

Regardless of her style choices, Elizabeth II was overall very Christ-like, but as we sit with Lamentations, we know she was not without sin or suffering. She did consistently made good choices, but also, in her incredible humility, admitted her misery and sometimes her mistakes. She shared with us a glimpse of her experience of wrestling with brokenness, from her annus horribilis, to her regrets about her response to the [Ab-er-van] disaster.

Lamentations tells us, “Although he causes grief, he will have compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love”. Her Majesty understood this, right from her formative years. She recalled her time with the Auxiliary Territorial Service by saying, "I began to understand the esprit de corps that flourishes in the face of adversity." A very Christ-like reflection indeed.

She was, underneath her many roles, responsibilities and concerns, a humble, Christian servant. She was anointed into a unique vocation, the same in many ways as anyone takes on at their baptism. She joined in Christ’s work in a lay vocation that only she could do, the same as any lay Christian, who make up the majority of the church. And probably like many who discern what God calls them to, she did not seek the job out for herself; in fact she possibly wrestled with the unexpected burden that was asked of her. Her life-long dedication and hard work came from an understanding of service and duty, and we can presume that it was rooted in Christ’s example. Jesus was the King that the Queen served, and it was Jesus that she saw in every face she met, and every one of her subjects that she served with loving devotion. We can all see the life of God shining out of a life lived as such.

Hers was a very public and prominent vocation, like Mary of Nazareth who bore the Christ child, St Peter and St Paul who built the foundations of Christ’s church, or indeed the vicar of St John’s Hyde Park. But from God’s perspective, all these vocations are equal and as important as Christians called (for example) to work at a charity, or volunteer as an altar server, or care for a loved one. Under the surface, the children of God are less different than we appear, when God’s divinity shines through our humanity.

Her Majesty’s response to the steadfast love of God in the reality of sin and suffering was a declaration of faith and calling - “Not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me”, as it says in this morning’s gospel reading. In her first Christmas address, before her Coronation Day, she said, "I want to ask you all, whatever your religion may be, to pray for me on that day - 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." A very Christ-like reflection indeed.

And now she has died, and we thank God for who she was, what she did, and what she leaves behind. Death is sad, and also transformed in the light of God and the revelation of her Lord and ours, Jesus Christ. By the promises of God, we know that she is safe in the arms of God. That knowledge about those we have lost in death does not lessen our sadness, but it does give us love and hope enough to keep going, to lift our chins and look to the horizon, and the promises of God that will be fulfilled. Through Christ, we look at death and see also resurrection. “What is mortal may be swallowed up by life,” as we heard Paul wrote to the Corinthians. Life eternal, the promise of which both Elizabeth II in her rest and we who are still awake can be assured. Our Christian vision of resurrection is shaped by our lives that go before. The Queen lived a life of service out of love for her God and her people. To use a phrase from theologian Sam Wells, hers will be an eternity shaped by those patterns of love.

As King Charles put it, his mother’s was “a life well lived”, and it is heartening to hear him in the very next breath renew her “promise of lifelong service” for himself. A very Christ-like reflection indeed. We look to him now to serve us as our sovereign, rooted in that same faith, called to his own vocation, and equal in his share of the same promises. It is easy for me to echo St Paul: “Do not lose heart.” God save the King. Amen.

Lent Reflections

Lent Reflections

Having spent years spending Lent thinking about Jesus, this year may be an opportunity to think about ourselves. What have I felt since last Easter? What do I feel now? Have I allowed myself to feel everything fully, to come before God in the safe knowledge of his strength and love and rend my heart with all that has happened, rather than clasp it together under tighter and tighter pressure?