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

Creed

11 April 2024

4 min read

No mercy on the Megabus

Why is sin such a sickly, sticky thing in the human heart?

Jennifer Lander

Jenny is training to be a priest in the Church of England. She holds a PhD in law and previously researched human rights issues in extractive industries.

An upset man holds his hands on his head as he misses a bus.

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai

“I’m begging you, I’m begging you,” pleaded the passenger. His two large suitcases lying around him, the Nigerian man knelt on the pavement outside the Megabus station. The bus driver stood surly-faced, arms crossed. The passenger’s jacket was ripped where the driver had shoved him off the bus. The passenger had one too many bags; he had not read the Terms and Conditions on his ticket.

The man groaned – “I must get to Heathrow, I have a flight to catch! I’m willing to do anything – to pay for an extra ticket, to pay the extra bag fee, I have money, see?” He showed the driver his wallet pleadingly, demonstrating his possession of several bank cards.

A few concerned passengers stepped off the bus. “We don’t have a bag in the hold; we’re happy for this man to have our space.” Another person said, “I booked a ticket but my friend didn’t come – there’s a whole seat’s worth of luggage space available in the hold.” Yet the bus driver would not budge. Even though Megabus has an excess baggage policy, it was down to the driver’s discretion. The driver alone had the power of life and death, to say “yay” or “nay” – to restore a man’s dignity or completely ruin it, along with his jacket.

As the minutes ticked on, other passengers began to get irate with the Nigerian man – “just buzz off mate, you’re making us late!” “You should have read the rules!” “You’re making the bairns on the bus cry!” Stony faces pressed against the window as the man knelt on the pavement. Even those who had tried to help him left him in the harsh hands of the bus driver and his colleagues, tiny kings in a kangaroo court. For the bus driver, there was no backing down – he was pacing, sweating and red-faced, repeating over and over again to himself his side of the story. And in the end, we left the Nigerian passenger in the heartless hands of bus bureaucracy, wiping our hands of the injury done to him – “we tried.”

How mucky and murky the human heart can be.

The whole experience on the Megabus that day left me feeling sick. We all like to think of ourselves as decent folks, as long as we do our “bit”. But on that bus I realized the difficulty: what is “my bit”? Who decides what is “enough”? How quickly a petty issue of baggage can descend into a power play. How quickly do ordinary nice people become a mob when they are outraged or inconvenienced. How mucky and murky the human heart can be.

The only word that feels strong enough to me to describe this condition is “sin”. This word may sound like a relic of a bygone Britain, but I think it’s as relevant as ever. It’s a serious word, loaded with a sense that the things we do mean more than we know. Sin suggests that I am accountable for how I treat people – not just to my own perception but some higher standard that safeguards the dignity of all human beings. Christians believe that it is God who safeguards our humanity, who sets the standard for how we should and should not treat others. We are accountable “vertically” – to God – as well as “horizontally” to each other.

It seems to me that “sin” is not a laundry-list of rules but more like a tangled knot of slippery threads – I can’t see where it begins and where it ends, in my own heart or in the world at large. The Christian Eastern Orthodox tradition often likens sin to sickness or a dis-ease of the soul; it infects our reasoning, our emotions and our actions. And that’s why the hurt and pain we cause each other is so “sticky” – no one is left untouched by the effects of the damage we cause each other.

It was quite clear to me that there were some “sins of deliberate fault” on the Megabus that day – the bus driver’s behaviour was patently unfair and verging on abuse. But I would say sin also flourished in the self-defending logic of the passengers who just wanted to stay in their lane, and for the Nigerian chap to stay in his. Don’t bother me, with your problems. I look after me, you look after you. There were sins of ignorance too – I felt this sick sense in my stomach as the bus pulled out of the station that there was more I could have done, but I didn’t quite know what. All I know is that every person needed mercy on that Megabus, whether we knew it or not. Ironically, the Nigerian man was the most innocent of all.