Consider the crown and who wears it

The Feast of Christ the King prompts Jamie Mulvaney to ask what sort of strong leader we should seek.

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Associate Minister at Holy Trinity Clapham, London.

King Charles in a black dinner suit talks and gestures to President Macron who is similarly dressed.

King Charles and President Macron at a September 2023 state visit.

Remember singing 'God Save the King' for the first time and it took a little more effort? Instinctively, we were so used the Queen, and unless you're well into your eighties the concept of a King will still be something a novelty. Slowly the stamps have changed, and new passports are finally being printed. After King Charles' first year on the throne, and having celebrated his 75th birthday this month, we can reflect with a little more perspective about what it means to have a king.

A new king gives us an opportunity to look forward and back. The crown cradles continuity, bringing the past into the present. And whether you've been indulging in the latest series of Netflix's The Crown or venturing further back into royal history, we can also indulge in a little time travel. Maybe not a regal DeLorean, but if you hop inside the state coach there’s quite the ride to be taken. The historian Dominic Sandbrook recently detailed in The Times how in Britain that 'it is remarkable how often monarchs’ opening 12 months have set the tone for the rest of their reign.'

We find ourselves in a liminal space - not quite an airport terminal - but one where we are on our way although not there yet. We see glimpses of this still-coming kingdom, but not yet fully realised.

What if we went back to the future even further, considering Jesus Christ as king? We might be unable to argue with the enduring legacy of this historical figure, but most of us are unfamiliar with Jesus as King. We tend to think of baby Jesus, Jesus feeding the five thousand or Jesus on the cross, but what about Jesus as King? Today the church celebrates the Feast of Christ the King, an interestingly fairly recent tradition. A bit like the John Lewis Christmas ad encouraging us to 'let your traditions grow'. But there is nothing new about Jesus' kingship. The church has always thought of Christ as King. According to the accounts of Jesus' life in the Bible, the topic Jesus taught on more than anything else was 'the Kingdom of God'. And King Charles’ coronation was itself a portal to the life of this king. The service began with the Chapel Royal chorister greeting the new monarch, ‘Your Majesty, as children of the Kingdom of God, we welcome you in the name of the King of Kings.’ His reply? ‘In his name, and after his example, I come not to be served, but to serve.’ It was a useful reminder that the form of servant leadership we have assumed and expected from the Queen and now the King is not a modern invention or interpretation of how monarchs should be.

Much like the arrival of a new king, Christ the King Sunday also enables us to both look back and look forward. We find ourselves in a liminal space - not quite an airport terminal - but one where we are on our way although not there yet. We see glimpses of this still-coming kingdom, but not yet fully realised. The word 'Gospel' was well-known in the ancient world, describing the good news of the rightful king who has returned home to take this throne.

But this king is quite the contrast to the strong leader we're used to. As we look to world leaders today, we see many elder statesmen (you decide whether 'elder' or 'statesmen' should be emphasised!). There are different understandings and projections of what strong leadership looks like.

The historical reality of Jesus, his fingerprints on the world today, and the professed experience of millions of people worldwide continue to subvert.

Jesus is a king who comes in humility. There was speculation of a slimmed-down coronation for King Charles proportionate to the cost-of-living crisis. But in Jesus’ mind must have been more the cost of dying, as he rode on a donkey into Jerusalem, surrounded by a fickle crowd cheering his own coronation before condemnation only a week later. At his execution there was mockery with the sign on his cross ‘King of the Jews’, and of course wearing a crown of thorns. If you travel back to his birth, the magi bring royal gifts, so his life is bookended with rumours of kingship.

What might this mean for us in the twenty-first century? On the one hand, there’s the personal, individual connection to the king. Pope Francis heralds ‘Christ the King who conquers us’. We’re happy for his rule and reign out there, but what about extending into our own lives? For the past few years on the eve of Christ the King I've been to baptism services at Southwark Cathedral. One of the symbols of the water in baptism is that we overwhelm our lives with Christ's life, and ultimately his reign over who we are, how we are, and what we do. Then there’s the broader reality: a king who does not neatly or easily fit into our political paradigms, whose priorities in one way or another will catch us off guard.

Jesus is the king who turns things upside-down. His kingdom is not marked by borders but is still whispered of and spoken about two thousand years later. That is what we sing about at Christmas. The king arriving in vulnerability as a baby and one day - who knows when - Christians believe he returns in power as king. On that day, Christians believe justice, goodness and all that we long for will be ushered in. But until then, the historical reality of Jesus, his fingerprints on the world today, and the professed experience of millions of people worldwide continue to subvert.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian famous for plotting to kill Hitler said, ‘A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.’ The mystery amidst the majesty. Keep looking back. Keep looking forward.

Article

Character

Creed

23 April 2024

6 min read

‘Marriage is martyrdom', seriously?

Arguing relationship requires sacrifice ignites a sleepy tutorial.

Henna Cundill

Henna is a researcher with the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

Quizzical-looking students look across a tutorial to others.

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai.

It is late afternoon on a rainy Monday. My students mooch through the door, filling up the seats in our overheated, clinically modern tutorial room. They are a particularly young class this term – nearly all teenagers still. The setting feels entirely the wrong for poring over texts that are thousands of years old, texts written by some of the earliest Christians, now displayed on flashy laptops and smartphones.

The first excerpt is short – part of a hand scribbled note by Ignatius of Antioch. He wrote it even as he was marched to his execution at the hands of the Romans.

Suffer me, my brethren; hinder me not from living, do not wish me to die… Suffer me to receive the pure light; when I shall have arrived there, I shall be a human being.

Ignatius shows no fear despite facing his impending martyrdom, I explain, because he goes to his death as one who was utterly convinced by the hope of resurrection. To him, death was life, and life was death.

From the mixture of expressions on the faces around the room, I can easily tell which members of the class have attended Professor Behr’s lectures on this week’s material, and which members of the class have attended only to their mattresses and duvets. (‘Twas ever thus with undergraduates.) “Let’s look at Professor Behr’s own chapter on the subject,” I suggest, adding with a certain emphasis, “It was your required reading for this tutorial.”

Reading Ignatius, along with some other texts from this period, Behr summarises the argument as follows: earthly life is a transitory thing, and driven by the fear of death, it becomes all too easy to focus on and hang on to this fleeting life. However, the Christian hope is that the self-sacrificing death of Christ, who gave up his life in the service of others, has transformed the reality of death. Death is no longer just the end of this life but the beginning of another one – a better, eternal life. And this, for each Christian, becomes the impetus to pursue one’s own journey towards self-sacrifice, towards laying down one’s earthly life for another, following in the example of Christ, just as Ignatius wished to do. Behr writes:

“Through Christ’s having ‘changed the use of death’ we are able to change the ground of our existence from necessity and mortality to freedom and self-sacrificial love…”

I glance around the room. A few students seem mildly interested, some others are gazing at their screens, scrolling. Perhaps their curiosity has been piqued by the chapter that they are meant to have already read? More likely they have zoned out and are flicking through TikTok. One guy at the back stares glumly out of the window, mouth half open, the one next to him is dismantling a ballpoint pen.

“Any thoughts?” I ask the room. Every pair of eyes is on me, and I know that there are thoughts – the silence is thick with them.

A few moments later, however, and all their eyes are on me. Why? Because in the second part of his chapter, Behr takes this argument of self-sacrifice, of death to life, and uses it as a lens through which to examine the specific human phenomenon of marriage. I read out a few well-chosen excerpts – juicy ones that include the words “eros”, “sexuality” and even “ecstasy” – and it is no surprise that a room full of drowsy teenagers becomes somewhat more alert.

It is through the natural human desire to be united with another person, argues Behr, that we are truly drawn out of ourselves, and by doing so we learn to give out of our own lives for the sake of the life of another. To commit one’s life and one’s body to another in marriage is the epitome of dying to self, even a kind of martyrdom. And, if marriage leads to parenthood, then the opportunity to live a life of self-sacrifice only increases. However hard it might be, those who are married, parenting, or both are driven by love to place the lives of their spouses and children before their own.

“Any thoughts?” I ask the room. Every pair of eyes is on me, and I know that there are thoughts – the silence is thick with them. But who will be brave? Patiently I stare them down. Eventually someone cracks, and a hand creeps up into the air.

“Yes, go ahead…” I encourage.

“Well… I think you should never be in a relationship where you have to do that!”

“OK.” We’re off. “Never have to do what, exactly?”

“Like, be expected to give up your life for someone else. Like, it’s your life. No one else has a right to ask for you to sacrifice yourself.”

The conversation went on from there, the class getting more and more animated, a polemic against the idea that marriage, or just long-term relationships in general, should involve the sacrifice of one’s ‘self’. A spouse, they insisted, should be someone who affirms and celebrates everything that you are, and who supports you in whatever dreams or ambitions that you want chase. And children? Well, they should only be brought into the equation to fulfil your dreams, not to limit them. Marriage is many things, but it should not be a sacrifice, less still a martyrdom.

Well, let us not be too hard on the optimism of youth. The optimism that imagines marriage and family life will be something that gives, and gives, and will never take anything away. How can they know – those who have never been awake at 3am with a projectile-vomiting toddler, and those who have never had to calmly negotiate over where all the money goes? It is the optimism of those who have never had to pass up on a job or an opportunity because it doesn’t fit in with the spouses’ promotion or the kids’ schooling. These, and a thousand other moments of self-sacrifice: the gritty realities of a daily choice to stick in a marriage (or any kind of long term relationship) and make it work.

This is a much slower kind of martyrdom, a decision made not once but daily, in a society where such decisions are frequently undone.

But is this gritty reality a giving up of life, or an embracing of it? Perhaps, like Ignatius, in this kind of death to self we actually find life. In a committed union, we carefully place our lives in the service of another, not because they expect us to, but because out of love we choose to. This is done, of course, in trust that the other person will do the same in return. There is no suggestion, either here or in Behr’s chapter, that someone should stay in a union where that placing of oneself is being merely used and abused. But where two people find a true mutuality in that laying down of self, well, love has funny way of making limits feel like a kind of freedom after all.

“Hinder me not from living…” writes Ignatius, as he is marched to his certain death. His eyes were filled with the image of new self, a better self, that would come to him all at once and suddenly through the laying down of his life for what he believed in. With a faith so strong, this may have been an easy kind of martyrdom – a decision made once, which could not, by him, be undone. But let us also hinder not those who choose to unite their lives to another. This is a much slower kind of martyrdom, a decision made not once but daily, in a society where such decisions are frequently undone. One day some of these young people will feel the call to this kind of death, and that in this death there is life. Hinder them not to die.