Christ's Ideal of a Monarch
Luke xxii. 25, 26
The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest amongst you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. — Luke xxii. 25-6.
fTlHERE have been sovereigns of England whose -*- death was a relief. There have been others who were mourned with a certain tepid and decorous regret. But there has never been one on whose bier have been heaped such fragrant wreaths of universal love and sorrow as have been laid upon hers whom we have not yet learnt to call by another name than that which has been musical for all these years — the Queen. Why has her people’s love thus compassed her? Surely, chiefly because they felt and saw that Christ’s ideal of rule, as stated in these words of our text, was her ideal, which she had gone far to realise! Here is the secret of her hold upon her people. Here is the reason why, from almost all the world, tributes have come, and as
Mr. Balfonr lias well said, “They that loved not England loved her.”
It would be impossible for me now to speak, or for yon to listen to, words remote from the thought that has been filling the nation’s mind in these days. I can add nothing to the many eloquent and just appreciations to which we have listened from every side, but I can draw your attention to the underlying secret which moulded and shaped that life, and it becomes the pulpit to do so. We Christians ought to infuse a Christian element into everything. We should “not sorrow as others,” nor should we admire as others. We all unite in praising Queen Victoria, but eulogiums which ignore the ground of the virtues which they extol are superficial and misleading. I ask you to turn to the revelation of the secret of the nation’s love and sorrow suggested by the words of my text.
Christ sets forth in two sharply contrasted pictures the world’s ideal of a king and His ideal. The upper room was a strange place, and the eve of Calvary was a still stranger time, for disciples to squabble about pre-eminence. The Master was absorbed in the thought of His cross, the servants were quarrelhng about their places in His kingdom. Perhaps it was the foot-washing that brought about the unseemly strife that arose among them, each desiring to hand on the menial office to another.
Jesus Christ did it Himself; and to that, perhaps, refer the touching words which Luke gives as following the text: “I am among you as he that serveth,” with the towel round His loius, and the basin in His hand.
The World’s Ideal of a King.
Now, the one picture which He draws for us here — the world’s ideal of a king — is the portrait, familiar enough to all who know anything about that ancient order of society, of tyrants and despots, in Assyria, Babylonia, Pharaohs, and all the little kings round about Judaea. The vile old Herod and his equally vile brood, were recent or living examples of what the Master said when He sketched “the kings of the Gentiles.” They “lord it over them.” Arrogant superiority, imperious masterfulness, irresponsible wills, caprices ungoverned, an absolute oblivion of duties, no thought of responsibilities — these were the features of that ancient type of monarch: and, in spite of all constitutional hedges and limitations, there is abundant room for the repetition of them, even in so-called Christian countries.
And then, side by side with that, comes another characteristic: “They that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.’” They demand titles which shall credit them with virtues that they never try to possess, and live in a region filled with the fumes, from a thousand venal censers, of a flattery which intoxicates and makes giddy. A king in Egypt, very near our Lord’s time, had borne the title “Benefactor,” the very word that is employed here; even as many a most ungracious sovereign has been called “Your Most Gracious Majesty.”
The position tempts to such a type. And although the world has outgrown it, yet, as I have said, there is ample room for the recurrence to the old and obsolete form, unless a mightier hindrance than human nature knows, come in to prevent it. An ancient prophet lamented over the shepherds of Israel “that do feed themselves,” and indignantly asked, “should not the shepherds feed the sheep?” He meant precisely the same contrast which is drawn out at length in these two pictures that we have before us now.
The Christian Conception.
Turn to the other ideal: “Ye shall not be so.” The Christian conception is in sharp contrast to, and the Christian realisation of the conception should be the absolute opposite of, that type to which I have already referred. “He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger “; that suggests modesty and meekness of demeanour in bearing the loftiest office. “And he that is chief as he that doth serve “; that expresses an activity, not self-regarding and self-centred, but ever used for others. The simple <vords of Jesus Christ are the noblest expression of, and, as I believe, have been the mightiest impulse in prodncing, the modern recognition which, thank God! is becoming more and more pronounced every day amongst us, that power means duty, that elevation means the obligation to stoop, that true authority expresses itself in service. We see that conviction growing in all classes in England. Those who are lifted high are learning to-day, as they never learned before, the responsibilities and obligations of their position. And those who are low are beginning to apply the principle as they never did before, and to test the worthiness of the lofty, highly endowed, wealthy, and noble, by their discharge of the obligations of their position. And although it anticipates what I have to say subsequently, I cannot but ask here, who shall say how far the Queen’s example of authority becoming service has steadied the Empire, and made a peaceful transition from the old type of authority to the new a possibility? Although not directly stated in my text, there is implied in it another thought, namely, that whilst power obliges to service, service brings power. He that uses his influence, his authority, his capacities, his possessions not for himself, but for his brothers, will find that by the service he has garnered in a harvest of authority, and power of command which nothing else can ever give.
And now I may turn, without passing beyond the bounds of the pulpit on such an occasion as the present, to look at the great illustration of the Christian ideal which the royal life now closed has given. I venture to say that, without exaggeration, and without irreverence, our Queen might have taken for her own the declaration of our Lord Himself, “I am among you as one that serveth.” She served her people by the diligent discharge of the duties that were laid upon her. During a strenuous reign of sixty-three years, she left no arrears, nothing neglected, nothing postponed, nothing undone. In sorrow as in joy, when life was young, and the love of husband and family joys were new, as when husband and children were taken away, and she was an old woman, lonelier because of her throne, she laboured as “ever in the great Taskmaster’s eye.” That was serving her nation by the will of God. She served her people by that swift, sincere sympathy which claimed a share alike in great national and in small private sorrows. Was there some shipwreck or some storm, that widowed humble fisherfolk in their villages? The Queen’s sympathy was the first to reach them. Were the blinds drawn down in some colliery village because of an explosion? The Queen’s message was quickly there to bring a gleam of light into darkened homes. Did some great name in literature or science pass away? Who but she was first to recognise the loss, to speak gracious words of appreciation? Did some poor shepherd die, in the strath where she made her Highland home? The widowed Queen was beside the widowed peasant, to share and to solace. Knowing sorrow herself only too well, she had learnt to run to the help of the wretched. Dowered doubly with a woman’s gift of sympathy, she had not let the altitude of a throne freeze its flow.
She served her people yet more by letting them feel that she took them into her confidence, spreading before them in the days of her widowhood the cherished records that her happy pen had written in the vanished days of her wifehood, opening her heart to us in mute petition that we might give our hearts to her. She served her people by the simplicity of her tastes and habits, in these days of senseless luxury, and fierce, sensuous excitement of living. She served her people by the purity of her life, and so far as she could by putting a barrier around her court, across which nothing that was foul could pass. “He that worketh iniquity shall not tarry in my house,” said an ancient king on taking his throne. And our Queen, to the utmost of her power, said the same; and frowned down — stern for once in a righteous cause — impurity in high places. Una had her lion, and this protest of a woman’s delicacy against the vices of modern society is not the least of the services for which we have to thank her.
Let me remind yon that all this patient selfsnrrender had its root in Christian faith. She had taken her Lord for her example, because her faith had knit her to Him as her Saviour.
Therefore she, as no other English sovereign, conquered the heart of the nation, and was best loved by the best men and women. Never was there a more striking confirmation of the truth that whoever in any region reigns to serve will serve to reign.
And now, for a last word, let me remind you that the principles which I have been trying to express grip us, in our humble spheres, quite as tightly as they do those who may be mere largely endowed, or more loftily placed, than ourselves. There is no ideal for a Christian monarch which is not the ideal also for a Christian peasant. That which is the duty of the highest is no less the daty of the lowest. For us all it remains true that what we have we are bound to use not for ourselves, but as recognising both our stewardship to God and the solidarity of humanity; to use for Him, that is to say, for men. This is the secret of all high, noble, blessed life for evermore.
And, brethren, whilst I for one heartily rejoice in the growing consciousness of responsibility which is being diffused through all ranks of society to-day, and, bless God for one impulse to that recognition which, as I believe, came from the life now peacefully closed, I shall be no doubt charged by some of you with old-fashioned narrowness if I reiterate my own earnest conviction that we can rely on nothing to bring about a thoroughgoing, a widely diffused, and a permanent altruism — to use the modern word — except the force that comes from the motive which Jesus Christ Himself adduced, in this very conversation, when He said, “I am among you as He that serveth.” There is our example, ay! and more than our example, lodged in Him, and available for us, by our simple faith in Him. In love that seeks to copy, lies the only power that will cast out self, that “anarch old,” from His usurped seat in our hearts, and will throne Jesus Christ there. It needs a mighty lever to heave a planet from its orbit and to set it circling round another sun; and there is nothing that will deliver any man, in any rank of life, from the dominion of self, except submission to the dominion of Him who, because He died to serve, deserves and has won the supreme right of authority and dominion over human life.
To use anything for self is to miss its highest goodness, and to mar ourselves. To use anything for Christ and our brethren is to find its sweetest sweetness, and to bless ourselves to the very uttermost. Self-absorption is self-destruction; self-surrender is self-acquisition.
If we can truly say, “I am among you as lie that serveth,” if all our possessions suggest to us obligations and all our powers impose on us duties; then be we prince or peasant, rich or poor, entrusted with many talents or with but one, we shall make the best of life here, and pass to higher authority, which is nobler service, hereafter. Be the servant of all, and all are yours; serve Christ, and possess yourselves — these are the lessons from that royal life of service. May we learn them! May the King walk in his mother’s steps, and hearken to “the oracle which his mother taught him “!