God save the Queen!

Here is my article for June:

https://www.theplatinumjubilee.com/gift/

We are living at a momentous time in our history – celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of the Queen, and I think I'm on fairly safe ground to say that there won't be many of us who will be alive to celebrate another 75th Anniversary of a monarch's reign! I think I'm also on fairly safe ground to say that there will be quite a few occasions this month when we will sing the National Anthem.

Our National Anthem is less a triumphalistic declaration of the superiority of our nation over others, and more a prayer for the monarch. On a surface level this prayer is for the long life of the monarch, asking God to protect the monarch from their enemies. Though, as Eddie Izzard declared after noting her huge houses, surrounded by barbed wire and people with guns: “That's one saved queen!”  However, on a deeper level it is a prayer for the spiritual salvation of the monarch, echoing a prayer in the Book of Common Prayer that the monarch may always be led by God's will and walk in his way.

To focus our prayers on one person rather than the nation as a whole seems to be a bit odd for a National Anthem but there is a good reason. In the BCP Holy Communion service we ask God to “so rule the heart of thy chosen servant Elizabeth, our Queen and Governor, that she (knowing whose minister she is) may above all things seek thy honour and glory: and that we and all her subjects (duly considering whose authority she hath) may faithfully serve, honour, and humbly obey her, in thee, and for thee, according to thy blessed Word and ordinance.” This means that if the monarch is obeying God and we obey them we will be obeying God too. This connection was more obvious in the days when the monarch was directly involved in the writing of laws, but we can still see echoes of it today.

The celebrations for the Platinum Jubilee are rightly focused on the Queen and her personal dedication to her rôle. In this she provides an example of selfless service to be copied by anyone in leadership, but particularly community leaders at every level. But it is impossible to separate the Queen's sense of duty from her personal faith. In her Christmas message before her coronation she asked the country to “Pray for me … 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” and on her Ruby Jubilee, she thanked all those who had prayed for her saying those prayers “sustained me through all these years.” She consistently points to “the example of Jesus of Nazareth who, often in circumstances of great adversity, managed to live an outgoing, unselfish and sacrificial life” (2008), and reminding us that “God sent his only Son 'to serve, not to be served'. He restored love and service to the centre of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ” (2012).

So God save the Queen, and God save us through faith in the same Jesus Christ that she believes in and follows.