A Royal Sermon

[A version of this essay also appeared in the Washington Post on December 10, 2011]

In all of the attention paid to the details leading up to the Royal Wedding this year, somehow my name was left off of the guest list. This slight caused me not to awaken early on the morning of April 29^th to view the wedding, but a fellow theologian (loosely defined) overcome with joy contacted me to see if I had watched. When I informed him that I had not he said that I had missed out on a very moving moment. At his insistence, I did what many others without prerequisite invitations had done; I pulled it up on YouTube.  There it was a scene for the ages Prince William inside Westminster Abbey making his way to the Lantern adorned in his Irish Guard Uniform followed closely by his brother as all those assembled join the choir in singing “Guide me, O thou great redeemer.” Yes, the future King of England, in choosing the same hymn for his wedding that had been sung at his mother’s funeral, was also acknowledging that having royal blood coursing through your veins could only take you so far. His appeal was that God might guide him.

As I anticipate attending the presentation of Handel’s Messiah on Sunday afternoon at the Shiloh Baptist Church of Washington, my mind was made to recall not only that scene but one that occurred well over two centuries ago when King George II was in attendance for the performance of Handel’s Messiah and, as the story goes (I can’t find the YouTube video for this) as the Hallelujah Chorus was being sung the King came to his feet and since protocol dictated that when the King stood everyone stood, folks came to their feet and to this day, people stand.

There are some who have argued that the performance was a long one and that the King had merely stood up to stretch his feet. This Royal Wedding has provided me with sufficient reason to believe that even those who wear earthly crowns know what the Apostle Paul once wrote to the church at Philippi, there is “a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

We in Washington, who think ourselves to be important, would do well to remember and acknowledge this this year.