Anointed for Service

Sermon at Parish Mass, Pentecost 2022

Acts 2:1-11

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

 

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’

 

Romans 8:8-17

 

and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,* since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit* is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ* from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through* his Spirit that dwells in you.

 

12 So then, brothers and sisters,* we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba!* Father!’ 16it is that very Spirit bearing witness* with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

 

John 14:15-16,23-26

What a weekend it has been. We have never seen a platinum jubilee before, and it may be a very long time before one comes again – certainly not in my lifetime. So much has come together for this unique celebration, not only for the United Kingdom, but also for all the nations of the Commonwealth.

This bank holiday weekend began with the anniversary of the Coronation Service in 1953, the service at which the Queen received the crown in Westminster Abbey. And we’ve seen an awful lot of crowns this holiday: millions of crowns on logos, crowns made in their thousands in schools all over the country from shiny paper and plastic jewels, and some very imaginative ones: knitted crowns, baked crowns, cars dressed up as crowns, a giant crown of flowers at the Chelsea Flower Show.

But we haven’t seen very many ampoules of oil. Which is slightly odd, because the central, the most important moment of the coronation service, was not the placing of the crown on the Queen’s head. The most important part of that service, the most important symbol of royalty, was the anointing of the Queen with holy oil.

The act of anointing is rich in the symbolism of the Holy Spirit, whose gifts we celebrate this day, the Feast of Pentecost.

The prayers used at the anointing of the Queen spoke of her being consecrated, sanctified and set apart for life, of her being filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. After the anointing, the Archbishop of Canterbury prayed this prayer over the Queen:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who by his Father was anointed with the Oil of gladness above his fellows, by his holy Anointing pour down upon your Head and Heart the blessing of the Holy Ghost, and prosper the works of your Hands.”

Oil has been used from of old as a sign of consecration to God’s service. In ancient Israel, prophets, priests and kings were anointed with oil to set them apart them for the task to which they were called. Oil is not like water, it doesn’t evaporate in a moment, it soaks in, spreads, and gets everwhere. And the grace of the Holy Spirit, too, is like that. It spreads, it soaks in, it rubs off on people you encounter. It’s the devil of a job to keep it out! This is why anointing is so powerful a symbol of the Holy Spirit’s gifts.

The Queen has spoken many times of her own Christian faith, and of the help of God’s grace that has supported and equipped her throughout her long life and long reign. That moment of anointing and consecration at her coronation service has been of enduring significance for her. The Queen, of course, has a particular and unique task among her fellow Christians. But she is not different from any other Christian in needing, expecting, and receiving, the grace of the Holy Spirit for the task and path of life to which God has called each one of us.

The Queen is the only person currently alive to have been anointed as a monarch. But all Christians are part of a royal, priestly, people. All Christians receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit in our baptism. The Holy Spirit is poured out in abundance when we are baptised, with all the royal gifts that Christ gives, equipping and empowering us for the work and the path of life that God calls us to.

Those gifts are renewed and bring forth fresh fruit at other sacramental moments: confirmation, ordination, marriage, absolution, the anointing of the sick. The Church invokes the Holy Spirit over the gifts of bread and wine in the Eucharist, that they may become the Body and Blood of Christ, and that those who receive them may become one body in Christ. These sacramental moments are signs of the Spirit who is continually at work in us, constantly supplying the grace and strength that we need.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples, empowering them to preach the gospel to all nations. That gift was manifested then in visible signs, in the way the disciples preached with boldness, accompanied by signs and miracles just as Jesus had done.

And the gift of the Spirit endures in the Church in the life of every Christian. Usually the external signs of the Holy Spirit are not so spectacular as on the day of Pentecost: things like reconciliation, love, faith, the quiet business of conversion of life, endurance and hope in adversity. These signs, too, show a real outpouring of spiritual power, enabling us to do things that we could not do by ourselves.

But the deepest sign of the gift of the Holy Spirit is not exterior at all. Saint Paul in the letter to the Romans today tells us that the Spirit bears witness within us, in the secret place of our own spirit, that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, fellow-heirs with Christ, suffering with him that we may be glorified with him.

The work of the Spirit in our lives, the exterior work we are equipped to do, flows from our interior identity in Christ. We are children of God and fellow-heirs with Christ. God’s Spirit has been poured into our hearts, enabling us to cry out, with confidence and faith, “Abba, Father!”

That faith, that assurance of our calling, of the gift of the Holy Spirit, of our identity in Christ, is the bedrock of our Christian life. It has been so for Her Majesty the Queen throughout her life, as she has so often testified. And it is in no way different for every other Christian, for you and for me.

As we celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit that God has brought forth in her life, we celebrate too our own calling and identity in Christ, the work of the Spirit in our own lives, and we commit ourselves once more to to our work as Christian disciples, for which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are poured out in abundance.