Sermon-God Save our Gracious Church

King Charles III by Jonathan Yeo, 2024

A meditation drawing on the imagery of Proverbs 8.1-17 and Revelation 21.22-22.4 the words of the first verse of the national anthem, written for Evensong on Accession Day at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 8th September 2024.

Today the Church of England marks The Accession Day - the anniversary of the accession of King Charles III to the throne. In recognition of his position as Supreme Governor of this church and drawing on the imagery from this evenings readings from scripture, I offer you this meditation based on a well known text. 

God save our gracious church! 

Save us from our reluctance to change. May your amazing grace prize apart the doors of our hearts and minds that they might be filled with your enduring wisdom.

Save us from the temptation to speak instead of listen, to look but not to truly see, flattering ourselves with a filtered, airbrushed perspective on the world, hearing only the sounds of our own echo-chambers.

Save us from evil, pride and arrogance. From getting stuck up on our own high horses, with our head in the clouds, so we fail to encounter your messengers on the ground.

Save us from our addiction to the shining jewels of this world; help us to appreciate the true value of your living word.

Save us from our naval-gazing - while the make-shift ships of our brothers and sisters capsize around us.   

Save us from our incompetence to be truly hospitable to all. May your call from the gutters, the gates and doors of this city move us to stretch out our hands and bridge the divides that separate us from one another. Help us to be real neighbours.

Save us from speaking in wickedness and spite; may our tongues sing only words of righteousness and understanding. 

Save us by the transforming power of your grace.

God save our gracious church. 

Long live our noble church!

Long live our nobility - our noblesse - our privilege - of being baptised by the spirit and drawn into this one great family of faith. In spite of all our weaknesses and failures and not because of our own efforts or skill - but through the abundant grace of God himself.

Long live the guiding image of that noble kingdom - a heavenly city, where people of all nations walk together in divine light; healed by the fruits of your Spirit, cleansed and refreshed by the pure water of the river of life, surrounded by eternal, liberating love.  

Long live our ability to rediscover the transforming power of sharing this divine privilege in communion with those around us, all who have gone before us and all who are yet to come. 

Long live our desire to recognise and challenge earthly privilege; including our own; to be moved not just in thought and prayer - but to action - by the image of Christ in the faces of all those around us - with whom we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. 

Long live those noble virtues of integrity, honesty and courage; may they lead us to act with great boldness - holding our heads up high and proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

Long live our noble church!

Send her victorious.

Send her out of this place, driven by the Spirit, into every street, every home, every place of work in this parish and beyond - to be a living witness to Christ’s victory over darkness and despair. 

Send her out, imperfect, displaying the scars of fleeting victories over the temptations of the world; a repentant sinner, always forgiven. 

Send her out to nurture peace and reconciliation wherever there is discord and distrust; proclaiming Christ’s victory on the cross; finding security not in stockpiles of weapons but in his outstretched arms.

Send us, her people, out of our comfort zones, to be ministers of the new covenant of life and hope; victorious over our own doubts and insecurities through the knowledge that the strife is over, the battle won. 

Send her victorious.

Happy and glorious.

Happy that we have been called through our baptism and by the example of Christ ever closer into the glorious relationship that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

Happy that we have each received gifts through which we can work to glorify God our Father; becoming his image bearers in the world. 

Happy that the glory of God is man fully alive; so let us seek to live life in all its glittering fullness. 

Happy that God’s brilliant celebrity resonates throughout every crumb, every particle, every atom of his creation. Let us bear the weight of this glory by reverencing our natural world.

Happy that, despite all our failings, our false starts, our loose ends and unfinished business, we are being continually transformed by the Spirit, from one degree of glory to another. 

Happy and glorious.

Long to reign over us. 

A reign supreme; which is alpha and omega, the beginning and the end; established before the creation of the world.

A reign in which the fake news of our earthly allegiances will be held up to the reality of the Good News that is the living God. 

A reign of immeasurable blessings and boundless love, in which we will each find fulfilment.  

A reign which was made visible by the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Christ himself; who has promised to come again. 

A reign we can glimpse through the gift of the holy scriptures and the sacraments and through our loving service to one another. 

A reign which is our deepest - our only true - longing; thy kingdom come.

Long to reign over us. 

As we come to the end of this Accession Day we pray,

God save the Church.


Links

Why Pray for the King? - A Sermon given on The Accession Day 2024
Her Majesty's Life of Faith - September 2022

Image : HM Charles III, by Jonathan Yeo, 2004