Today, as a jobbing priest, I shall perform my first, (and I expect, my last) coronation. The good people of Wistow, where I shall be presiding at Communion at 9 a.m. are bringing their Jubilee king and queen - drawn from the village's primary school, to church to be crowned. They will promise to uphold equity, mercy, justice, fairness, and support the people of Wistow.
It will have little of the grandeur of the 1953 coronation, but I hope it lives in the village memory for many long years, as an occasion which brought people together, and reminded them of what kingship is about.
One of the functions of a king is to bestow gifts- I remember the coronation mug, and the propelling pencil I received in 1953- the mug long gone, the pencil somewhere upstairs- I must look it out. Today,' Pentecost, God will bestow gifts on his people through the giving of his Holy Spirit. These will go beyond equity, mercy, justice and fairness in the transformed lives of Jesus' followers, though those qualities are not bad as places to start. God is not stinting in his bestowal of gifts. We ask, he gives. It's as simple- and complicated- as that. King of kings; out of the riches of your grace, what will you give your people? What would I like?
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