Have You Met The King?

As you may know, by the time you read this, I will (all being well) have been presented to His Majesty at Buckingham Palace as one of his Honorary Chaplains.

For clergy in the Church of England, the monarch is not only the Head of State, but also the Supreme Governor of the Church and Defender of the Faith. We don’t have a Pope, but if we did (as Henry VIII would have been happy to inform us) it would be the Monarch. For us, the monarch represents a higher authority, and we have to swear our allegiance to him, pray for him, and (within the bounds of conscience) obey him.

Even though rationally we know that His Majesty is as much flesh and blood as the rest of us, and as fallible as the rest of us, there is an inescapable sense that meeting him will be an honour because of what he represents.

And it’s not dissimilar for the Pope. He is, at the end of the day, just a person like the rest of us. I was very tickled to read that he and his brother (who still lives in the USA) regularly compare their Wordle scores!!

When we find ourselves feeling that we are in awe of someone, it is often what they represent rather than who they are that makes us anxious or excitable. And we do this from a young age.

Whether we live in awe of “The Headteacher”, “The Team Captain”, “The Boss”, “The Bishop” or “The Monarch”, we may easily forget that these people- (who may also have great wisdom, experience, wealth, power, or even holiness, in their own right) are, at the end of the day, made just like us, and as much in need of love, compassion, friendship and honesty as any one of the rest of us.

It's important to value people for who they are, not for the badge they wear or the role they are inhabiting.

The Bible says

“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

One of the things we do at our baptism services in church is to anoint the person being baptised with oil. Oil is used for lots of purposes- as a sign of healing, as a sign of God’s spirit at work in our hearts, but also as a sign of royalty- monarchs get anointed!

I always say to the families of the children I baptise that they are, each and every one, God’s royalty. As Christians, we believe everyone has a royal heritage, and everyone is to be welcomed as though they were Christ- our King.

The “royal family” is all around us- in our neighbours, our colleagues, our schoolchildren. In the people who collect our bins just as much as in the people who rule our nation.

I do hope that, whoever you meet today, you are able to recognise the royalty in them, and that they are able to recognise the royalty in you.

Every Blessing

Revd Kalantha