Introduction
We come to Church this morning in sorrow at the passing of Queen Elizabeth.
We come thankful to God for a lifetime of service and a reign that framed our lives.
We bow our heads at her memory and lift them to pray ‘God save the King!’
As we follow the Requiem Eucharist, authorised by the Archbishops, for our late Queen, we begin by calling to mind our failings in thought, word, deed and omission seeking forgiveness from the Lord who is Elizabeth’s and ours.
Sermon
The choice of Lamentations Chapter 3 and John Chapter 6 for this unique Eucharist expresses grief alongside the consolation of faith we are granted as Christians who share this morning the holy bread of eternal life.
‘Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love’ we heard from the book of Lamentations. ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry’ we heard from St John’s Gospel.
We feel grief akin to losing a mother - Elizabeth was the nation’s mother for 70 years - and we bow our heads before God. The same lady, supreme governor of the Church of England, lived, as many of us live, hungry for God with hunger satisfied weekly by the bread of life. We bow our heads in grief but lift them to the Lord this morning as we receive Holy Communion or a blessing.
Today all are welcome at the altar as we seek consolation from God who took Elizabeth, graciously and gently in her 96th year, to himself and to union in Christ with her beloved Philip. May they rest in peace and rise in glory!
Today we give thanks for Queen Elizabeth, mindful of both her example of service and her strong Christian faith. Well aware of the fame she had throughout her life she made this observation: ‘Jesus Christ lived obscurely for most of his life. . . He was maligned and rejected by many, though he had done no wrong. And yet, billions of people now follow his teaching and find in him the guiding light for their lives. I am one of them’.
Responding to the news of the Queen’s death at Balmoral on Thursday the Archbishop of Canterbury said these words: ‘As a faithful Christian disciple, and also Supreme Governor of the Church of England, she lived out her faith every day of her life. Her trust in God and profound love for God was foundational in how she led her life – hour by hour, day by day’.
Our Bishop, Fr Martin Warner, wrote this: ‘Thanks be to God for the life of his servant, Queen Elizabeth II. Her death is a moment of bereavement for the whole nation, and for the Commonwealth. She will remain in our hearts and minds as an exceptional example of public duty and commitment to her high calling, carried out with unswerving faith in God. Let us come together as a nation to mark her death with dignity and pride. Our prayers are with those who have been close to her in the service of the crown over many years, together with all the members of the Royal Family as we pray for the new Sovereign, King Charles III’.
So indeed we come together as a nation and gather here from this village, ‘to mark her death with dignity and pride’. I wish to thank on our behalf those at St Mary’s who dropped everything these last three days to prepare this service so we can gather with solemnity to pray rest for the Queen’s soul, express thanksgiving for her life of service and salute our Sovereign Lord, King Charles as he begins his reign.
As I reflected further on today’s set readings and the character of the Queen, the verses that leapt out at me were Lamentations 3:25-6 ‘The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord’. There’s been an enigmatic silence about Queen Elizabeth. This has been prudent, yes, because some of the things about her - all the privilege - and that have occurred around her - Margaret, Diana, Andrew, Harry, Meghan and so on - have been hard for her to address. A prudent silence, undoubtedly, but also a courageous silence, holding back from putting the record straight. Waiting, silence, looking to God to be your ultimate champion, knowing when to speak and when not to speak are virtues we should covet in a world so ready to speak and speak and speak - given the extraordinary expansion of the media over her lifetime. Such humble silences have been at the heart of our late Queen’s character, a capacity to submit the pains and humiliations of life to God without complaint. As a prayer of Eric Milner-White expresses it to God: ‘Pains... become pure grace of thy giving if offered up in prayer and shouldered to thy praise’. We deceive ourselves if we think we can serve without the self denial represented by eating our words many a time. Taking up the Cross is a shouldering of little humiliations given us by life so they break the ego’s shackle around us and help incorporate us into God’s own mercifulness as we pray for the people linked to our hour by hour frustrations.
This now is our prayer, as, with sorrow and thanksgiving, we come to God in this historic Requiem for Queen Elizabeth. ‘Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love… I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry’. As we reflect upon this scripture we bring Mozart to our aid as we pray for Elizabeth the Ave Verum: ‘Hail, true body, born of the Virgin Mary, who truly suffered, sacrificed on the Cross for us, whose pierced side overflowed with water and blood, be for us [and for her] a foretaste in the test of death’.
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