The Principal of Pusey House Preaches at Westminster Abbey
An excellent sermon as Britain mourns the death of The Queen
For the first Sunday Evensong after the death of Her Late Majesty The Queen, Westminster Abbey wisely had the Principal of Pusey House, the Rev. Dr. George Westhaver preach.
Those fortunate to be there were rewarded with an excellent and timely sermon. Dr. Westhaver expounded especially well on The Queen noting one Christmas the importance of doing “small things with great love.”
…She showed us the character of her Majesty much more often in acts of humble service: in ribbon-cutting, and unveiling plaques, on visits to hospitals, and in ‘the banter with excited crowds standing in the rain’.
She described this principle in her Christmas broadcast in 2016: ‘Christ’s example helps me see the value of doing small things with great love.’
…Doing small things with great love connects the little moments of our lives to the divine love and life of the King of Kings. In small acts of service, in choosing what is good over what is easy, even when it is embarrassing or hard, we do small things with great love. We may feel inadequate, but even then Christ who gives us his divine life in weak human gifts converts our water to wine. He changes our little acts of obedience, to the gold of his love.
I can certainly take issue with some of decisions of the Abbey in recent years. I attended the main Sunday service during the Jubilee in June, and the service and the preacher were lackluster at best. But this past Sunday Evensong, they did well to choose Dr. Westhaver to preach one of the few Abbey sermons during the days of mourning The Queen. (The Abbey is now closed in preparation for the state funeral.)
But enough commentary from me. Here is the sermon:
Westminster Abbey Evensong
Trinity 13 (Psalm 29, Isaiah 60, John 6: 51-69) George Westhaver
Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you ... Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
In this majestic passage from the prophet Isaiah, we are invited to share in the joy of coming home. We are invited to make our home in the city which God has prepared for his people.
On the day of the coronation of our late Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth in this Abbey Church, she was given a Bible: ‘Here is Wisdom; This is the royal Law; These are the lively Oracles of God’. Isaiah’s words are living oracles which speak to us now. During these days when we mourn the passing of our Beloved Queen, as we pray for her and for ourselves, her life and witness also serves as a light to help us to live where God dwells with his people.
The prophet addresses Zion, the city of Jerusalem: they shall call you the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. This Jerusalem is more than a city. Jerusalem is both a goal, and a description of the home where God dwells with his people. Jerusalem, Sion, is also a symbol for a certain kind of life, a good life, a life of ‘Peace’ and ‘Righteousness’. Isaiah points beyond the destruction of the city, beyond the exile of the people, and to the rebuilding of the city and the temple in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. He points further still. Almost like one of the evangelists, Isaiah describes the realities in which we live now. He describes the light by which we see today. This Jerusalem is a prophetic description of the Church – her walls are Salvation, her gates Praise. Isaiah describes for us the kind of life which should characterize the ecclesiastical commonwealth, and the welcome of all people from all places.
Arise and shine, for your light is come. What is the light of this city? ‘The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory’. This light is not just clear brightness. It has a personal character. This is the Light of the same substance with God and the Father. The light which shines on Jerusalem is the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ: ‘Jesu, the very thought of thee With sweetness fills my breast; But sweeter far thy face to see, And in thy presence rest.’ If we are here today, it is because we have been drawn in some way by the sweetness and goodness of this face, as our late Queen was. The principles which govern the life of the city of God are at one with this light. Righteousness and wisdom, mercy and justice, are features of the face of the Lord Jesus. They are also the living principles to which her majesty committed herself in the coronation ceremony.
What then does the life and witness of our late Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth show us about what it means to live in this city? Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Early Christians saw this passage fulfilled in the coming of the Magi, the three ‘kings’ who come on camels and with gifts of gold and frankincense to worship the infant Christ. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. This living oracle was also fulfilled in the life and service of our late Queen. I’d like to refer to two aspects of her witness which remain shining lights to us.
First, there is a logic of participation. The light of the glory of God in the face of Christ changes us. The light shines not just on us, but in us. The writer and apologist C S Lewis described the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in these terms: ‘the pressing of that huge, heavy crown on that small, young head becomes a sort of symbol of the situation of humanity itself: humanity is called by God to be his vice-regent and high priest on earth; yet feeling so inadequate. ... One has missed the whole point unless one feels that we have all been crowned...’ . All have been crowned.
The coronation gave a vocation to the Queen, but it also describes the vocation which belongs to her people. The logic of Coronation as described by C S Lewis is part of logic of Incarnation: God takes on human life to give each of us a share in the divine life. The lifting up of the Queen did not require that others be pushed down. Rather, we were all lifted up with her.
But how do we live such a lofty vocation? Here again, we may learn from our late Monarch. Of course we saw her on grand ceremonial occasions, the opening of Parliament, or the celebration of her Jubilee. But she showed us the character of her Majesty much more often in acts of humble service: in ribbon-cutting, and unveiling plaques, on visits to hospitals, and in ‘the banter with excited crowds standing in the rain’.
She described this principle in her Christmas broadcast in 2016: ‘Christ’s example helps me see the value of doing small things with great love.’
This is the logic of exchange, the logic of cross and resurrection, the logic of which Isaiah describes: ‘Instead of bronze I will bring gold, instead of iron I will bring silver.’ Doing small things with great love connects the little moments of our lives to the divine love and life of the King of Kings. In small acts of service, in choosing what is good over what is easy, even when it is embarrassing or hard, we do small things with great love. We may feel inadequate, but even then Christ who gives us his divine life in weak human gifts converts our water to wine. He changes our little acts of obedience, to the gold of his love.
Our Lord speaking to us in the living oracles of Gospel also gives a necessary warning. There is another kind of Kingship lurking in the darkness of our lives. King Herod killed the children of Bethlehem because he did not want to acknowledge another king, even a divine king. On the one hand, even the created order witnesses to the truth the Lord Jesus speaks, ‘It is the Lord that ruleth the sea ... the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice’. On the other hand, the deep things which he reveals do not fit with a merely human way of knowing. He has the words of life, and yet we are tempted to give up, to turn away from what is difficult to understand. There is always a little bit of king Herod in each of us. We want to make our own rules. Here again we may learn from our late Sovereign Lady. Queen Elizabeth pledged herself to principles of justice and goodness which she did not invent. The living principles which give life to the divine-human city cannot be decided by a majority. The Queen’s obedience to divine love and divine goodness gave a power and integrity to her love in small things.
Arise shine, for your light is come. It is true, that there is a lot of darkness around us. If we are honest, we know a lot about the darkness within us also. A life like that of our late Queen reveals our inconsistencies. We also know it is terribly difficult to change these things. But here again we are invited to follow our beloved Queen’s recipe. We are invited to show great love in small things. We begin where we find ourselves. We begin with the light God which has given us already. Arise and shine, the divine life is already shining in us and for us. Doing small things with great love connects the little moments of our lives to the divine love and life of the King of Kings.