Where Church and State are One: Part 2

So I did my best to give in to this spirit of invitation, and tried to allow the following readings and musical numbers to carry me along.  I joined the handful who knelt during the prayers, grasping the back of the occupied chair before me, and holding the front of my own chair so it did not skid into the legs of the worshiper seated behind me.  I watched as the first reader, a priest, was led up to the lectern by one of his younger colleagues who had so effectively directed the laity earlier.  This young man carried a baton or scepter, which he used now to wordlessly direct his older comrade toward the lectern, then waited behind to direct the older priest back when his reading was completed.  The second reader, directed up after more songs and prayers, was not a priest, but the Honorary Consul for Kiribati, a nation made up of atolls and an island straddling the equator in the Pacific Ocean.  While the priest had read from Proverbs, the diplomat read from Romans, where the apostle Paul speaks of enduring despite the thorn in the flesh which constantly threatens to curtain his ministry.  Of the two, the latter had a softer, more pleasing voice that could easily lull one into sleep (or compliance?) if one were not careful.  And for one existing on but an hour of sleep at this point, I found myself grateful that his scripture reading did not extend into a sermon.


All too soon the service drew to a conclusion, and the last responsive reading came from Philippians, a favorite passage of mine in which Paul exhorts us to rejoice always, to cast off all worry and allow God to handle our cares.  If we do this, Paul promises us that God will fill us with a peace that we can never fully understand, but is greater than any state of calmness that we on our own (or with the aid of a pharmaceutical firm) could ever manufacture.  It is a wonderful promise, and my tired mind welcomed it as the perfect way to end a service amid such earthly grandeur and distraction.


During the service, we sat on the Queen’s side, and faced toward a side door, the walkway to which was lined with imposing statues.  As the crowd followed the priests’ instructions, and was herded toward this exit, I was able to study these marble statues more closely.  From reading the inscriptions carved into the pillars upon which these larger-than-life figures stood, I realized that these were edifices to politicians, not to priests.  Lay people who had led England through turbulent times, not to saints beloved for their charitable works, the miracles they performed, nor revered for their holiness.  The most recognizable among them was Winston Churchill, who shepherded the people of this island nation through the terrors of The Blitz and World War II, a historic personage renowned in all corners of the world for his vision and strength of will.  But still a secular hero, not a man of the cloth who has dedicated himself to a life of austerity, holiness, and leading others toward God.  This state church, necessarily a fusion of the present world with the eternal kingdom, is wholly different from that which I am used to.  It serves as a fitting reminder that the purpose of my visit to England is to understand how the people here live in comparison to that of my own, and thus stamped a fitting coda upon my first visit to the many sites London has to offer.


Where Church and State are One will conclude with the next post