On May 6 this year in London, not far from where I work at Lambeth Palace, an event will take place which will draw the attention of the world. It’s something that happens once in a generation – or, to be more precise, hasn’t happened in 70 years. It is, of course, the coronation of King Charles III. And, despite the fancy costumes and regalia, it is an occasion with generosity at its heart.
Seventy years ago, Britain, like America, was a very different country. When Queen Elizabeth was crowned in 1953, the nation could still, with some confidence, be called a broadly Christian nation, with very small representations of other faiths. Secularism, while definitely present, was a minority interest. Today, we are a much more obviously multi-faith society, and a recent census revealed that less than half of the population now considers themselves to be even culturally Christian, with the number of people ticking the box of “no religion” rising significantly.
As a result, the Coronation will, for many people, come as something of a surprise. That surprise for many people in our very secular culture will be that this is a deeply religious service, steeped in Christian symbolism. And at the heart of this service is the theme of generosity.
History and the will of a king
The event that will take place goes back in its essence to the coronation of King Edgar in 973 AD, when Saint Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, crowned the Saxon king in the ancient Roman city of Bath in the west of England. Of course, the service has evolved over time, and each time it takes place it changes slightly to represent and respond to the times. This time, there is bound to be some acknowledgement of the reality of a multi-faith Britain, even if the structure and essence of the service will remain Christian. But the essential elements remain exactly the same as that service which took place well over 1,000 years ago.
Our world knows only too well the damage that despots can do. I remember a number of years ago visiting Beijing and wandering around the Forbidden City where Chinese emperors used to live and rule. I also remember visiting Rome around the same time and reflecting on what it meant to be an emperor in the days of the Europe-wide Roman Empire. In both places, rulers had the power of life and death over their subjects.
They could simply order a person’s execution or demand that they be flogged or imprisoned or have their property taken from them. They often ruled with a rod of iron, inspiring fear in their subjects. Power and authority were a ticket to imposing your will upon the world (until, that is, someone even more powerful was able to mount a coup and impose their will upon the world). Such leadership was the opposite of generous. It was the license to take as much as you can, to become as wealthy as possible, to get your subjects to serve you, not the other way round.
A Christian understanding of authority
As I reflected on this, it struck me how different a Christian understanding of power and authority is. And the service we will see on May 6 is a demonstration of that Christian understanding of authority.
To be sure, the service will be full of elaborate garments, expensive finery, and crown jewels that cost vast amounts of money to put together. Yet, paradoxically, these very symbols point to a very different order of things. We can argue over whether a bejeweled crown or a simple headdress would make the point better. A beautifully crafted and expensively assembled crown says that all this is so important that we will give our best to create a symbol of what really matters to us. A simple coronet or even a cloth hat would symbolize humility and simplicity. Either way, at their heart, each symbolizes a radically different form of a power and authority than we are used to seeing.
For example, King Charles III will be given a perfectly round orb, a symbol of the earth, with a bejeweled cross standing over it. As he receives this gift, it is a reminder to him, and to us, that this world is under the authority, not of the king, nor even of the will of the people, but under the God of Jesus Christ, the crucified King. A king like Charles is accountable to a higher authority than his own whims, or even the democratic will of the people, because even democracies can go wrong sometimes. The cross is the symbol of God’s self-sacrificial love and generosity to us as a human race. And so, as he receives the orb, he is reminded that he is to rule with that same self-sacrifice, that same generosity of spirit that Saint John understood when he wrote, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son….”
The king will also be given a scepter and rod. As he is given these symbols of earthly rule, he will be urged by the Archbishop of Canterbury: “Receive the rod of equity and mercy. Be so merciful that you be not too remiss, so execute justice that you forget not mercy. Punish the wicked, protect and cherish the just, and lead your people in the way wherein they should go.” Again, he is to exercise earthly authority with a blend of justice and mercy, of observing the rule of law, yet with a generosity of heart toward the poor and the needy.
The most private part of the service will be when the king is anointed with oil just as the ancient kings were in the Old Testament and kings have been for generations in the United Kingdom (UK). The oil – technically called Chrism oil and specially mixed from herbs, flowers, and olives grown on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem – is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. This is that same Spirit who is always called the “Gift of God” in Christian theology, or the “Giver of Life” in the Nicene Creed. The king is given the gift of the Spirit out of the generosity of God, so that he might rule with generosity, compassion, and wisdom, qualities he will need in great measure to rule rightly.
In fact this is something that, when he was merely Prince Charles, he took very seriously. For example, he used his position to launch the Prince’s Trust, a charity that aims to give disadvantaged children in the UK a chance in life. As the theologian John Milbank put it in an article for the website Seen and Unseen, for some time the future king has been able to draw attention to causes that need our generosity better than many in our society. Of course, he learned this from his mother. The late queen spoke a great deal about how her calling to be the monarch was not at its heart a calling to power and might, but a call to serve. As she said on her 21st birthday soon after becoming queen, “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, [and it was long!] shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
We may not always realize it, but this is a deeply Christian insight – that leadership is essentially about service. Here in the UK, we call the head of our government the Prime Minister or, properly translated, the First Servant. Ancient Roman or Chinese emperors did not think of themselves as servants of their people. In Christian understanding, being chosen to privilege is not a badge of pride, but a call to serve. It is a call to use the resources we have not for our own benefit but to benefit and resource those who most need our help. It is a call to generosity with all that God has given us.
This radical insight could only come from the revolution brought to the world by Jesus, who said: “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and [not to take the gifts and lives of others, but] to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Photo of King Charles and the Queen Consort used with permission
