Luke 16: 1-13
This last week has seen all of us shifting some of the certainties of our common language.
Many of us will have felt the jolt, and some of us the intense emotion, of singing the words “God’s save our gracious King” for the first time. Similarly in the solemnity of the accession of the King we have seen this new language used – surrounded by the echoes of the old familiar language of Queen and country. For instance, at the accession council last weekend the King sat on a throne still embroidered with his mother’s royal cipher. Similarly, an acquaintance of mine shared online the copy of the oath to the sovereign he took to become a new incumbent on the evening of the Queens’ death which his resourceful Archdeacon had hurriedly amended by hand to reflect this new reality and language.
With these changes there is an opportunity not to be simply drawn into this new language and new reality, but through that reflect on the relationship between the Sovereign and the Church in defining our identity as the Church of England, and in that who God is calling us to be as the Church and followers of Jesus through this.
Over this last week I think I have seen this most clearly in the Collect for the King which comes towards the beginning of the Book of Common Prayer Communion Service. Here it is in full:
Almighty God, whose kingdom is everlasting, and power infinite: have mercy upon the whole Church; and so rule the heart of thy chosen servant Charles, our King and Governor, that he (knowing whose minister he is) may above all things seek thy honour and glory: and that we and all his subjects (duly considering whose authority he hath) may faithfully serve, honour and humbly obey him, in thee, and for thee, according to thy blessed word and ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end.
This is a classic articulation of the reformed settlement which Thomas Cranmer’s Prayer Book sought to establish through the turbulent years of the sixteenth-century. The Collect, which survives pretty much in the same version from Cranmer’s original 1549 Prayer Book, hangs on two central claims of the English Reformation.
The first is that the religious settlement of the nation was defined by the faith of the Sovereign – “our King and Governor” and no other. When we hear these words spoken we don’t always recognise this emphasis. If you know the Prayer Book you will know that one of Cranmer’s tropes is to put information of vital importance in brackets – to remind the reader and listener of their significance.
In this Collect we find this trope used not once but twice. The first reminds us of the sovereign’s service to God in all things –– “open brackets” remembering whose minister he is “close brackets”. The second, reminding us of our duty to the sovereign because of that authority that we “open brackets” duly considering whose authority he hath “close brackets” may faithfully serve, honour and humbly obey him.
The sceptic might argue that these linguistic tropes were merely a means of Cranmer delivering the theological veneer to the political settlement demanded by his Tudor political masters. But this misses the reality that Cranmer was writing in. In his world view the theological and the political were indistinguishable.
Even if our world view has changed from that of Cranmer’s, the theological underpinnings remain the same for us now as they did when this prayer was written. We find this in the second principle of the Reformation implicit in this prayer. That this political reality hangs itself on a deeper theological reality. That our meaning is drawn not from the intrinsic moral or personal value of the Sovereign, nor on their force of arms or political might, but from God’s grace alone.
If we strip away all the grandeur of this language this truth remains. That we are, at the base of all things, reliant on God’s grace in all things.
Today’s Gospel reminds us of this deep truth in our life of faith. This passage from Luke’s Gospel is, in one sense, a little bit of a hotch-potch. The first half, the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, which seems to suggest that in life, we might like to be cunning and calculating like the dishonest manager.
This Parable is then contrasted with a series of “sayings” on faithfulness which seem to undermine this Parable, reminding us that, at the end of all things, as cannot serve two Masters. Read together they however provide ballast to Cranmer’s injunctions for the Sovereign and the underlying theological message to us all. You might live a life of political cunning and, through that, be seen by some to be a success. But in the final analysis, at the end of all things, what will we be judged on Jesus asks? Our success in life, or our service of others? On our devotion to our own ends, or our service to God in all things.
As we have reflected this last week on our late Queen’s remarkable life this truth laid out for us in Jesus’ teaching, and echoed in Cranmer’s prayer, has been played out again and again in one word that defined the life of our late Queen – service.
From the public promise she made as twenty-one-year-old Princess – that her whole life whether it be long of short would be dedicate to our service – through to her final public act in appointing our new Prime Minister two days before her death. The Queen lived in the spirit of these words. Serving the nation and commonwealth – duly considering whose authority she had – and doing so always in a life and calling knowing whose minister she was.
As we live through these extraordinary days marked by these shifts in our common language we can reflect and recommit ourselves to these principles and truths which have come to underpin the life of this nation and the Church of which we are part. Our new King has, more than one, committed himself to the life and pattern of service which marked his late mother’s life.
As we prayer for her, and prepare for her funeral tomorrow, we can rightly thank God for this service. Built on the sure foundations of her faith, and on her knowledge of whose authority she had. And we can pray for our new King that he will know the support of God’s grace and through that, know whose minister he is. But this change is not limited to the constitutional structures of Church and State, nor to the personal faith and integrity of our sovereign. In these prayers and promises lies a universal truth that we hear in our Gospel, and which we can recommit ourselves again today.
That God calls us into lives built on the sure foundation of God’s grace alone. That whatever the temptations might be, a flourishing life does not come from playing the margins like the dishonest manager, but in serving our one true master, in whose service is perfect freedom. That each one of us would know whose minister we are, and so recommit our lives in service of him and his creation.
