As I watched the funeral of The Queen Mother on Tuesday, and in particular as I watched Princes William and Harry walking behind their great-grandmother’s coffin, I found myself wondering what was going through their heads. Here they were walking behind a coffin draped in a royal standard, being carried by soldiers wearing guards’ uniforms, just as they had done a few years ago behind their mother’s coffin in the same great Abbey Church. The similarities were striking and so were the contrasts.

Both women had been called the ‘Queen of Hearts’. Both drew crowds. Both were said to have brought a fresh breeze into the royal house and even been the rescuers of the monarchy. Both were commoners, in the sense that neither had a royal title before marriage, and yet both had sufficient breeding to get past the scrutinisers of these things.

But this time there was no Elton John, the sorrow was that of parting when someone has had ‘a life well lived’. The hymns and anthems were traditional and well established pieces from the choral repertoire. The service was straight from the Book of Common Prayer even with that rather too graphic reference to ‘worms destroying this body’, which is perhaps a little too much information, though accurate.

As I pondered on these things, my mind thought in these two funerals, we have the continuity and change which makes up modern Britain. In these two funerals we have images of the missionary challenge that faces the churches. Young and old may have stood together to be part of the Queen Mother’s funeral, but when they get to plan things for themselves younger generations choose something more along the lines of Diana’s, complete with Elton John or Abba (as in the case of the funeral of a young mum who died in a women’s refuge, which I conducted some years ago). At Paula Yates’ funeral, which I also conducted, we had Bono singing ‘Blue Skies’, we had Nick Cave singing ‘Into my arms’, we had Jools Holland playing, Rupert Everett read a poem by Keats and Paul Gambaccini gave part of the address. At the funeral of a young man who died of cancer 6 months after I had conducted his marriage, we had other poems and Elvis Presley. The Church must always find ways to take what is important, what speaks to people and in people, and make it talk of holiness.

The more I reflect on this, the more I am convinced that we have a monumental missionary task in front of us. Too many people are now second and third generation estranged from the Church and with it the Christian gospel. Many are not in touch with the story of our faith and so readings from Revelation about a new heaven and a new earth, about the saints being presented before the throne of grace, do not resonate as we might hope they would do. They don’t know the hymns we sing and so when they look for musical ways to express loss and grief they either write new songs, as with ‘Candle in the wind’, or they pick pop songs which sort of say something near what they want. Many don’t have a language for grief and in which to assimilate their grief along particularly Christian lines.

We have a large electoral roll here - at the moment - 305 people to be precise. But we can see it is made up of people more in tune with the Queen Mother’s funeral than Diana’s. This is not a criticism of anyone. This is a picture replicated up and down this country. This is a challenge which the Church of England has to face. What appeals to one generation is not necessarily going to appeal to another and we have to find ways of addressing that. There are of course exceptions to that rule, but it is an observable trend.

At this point, let us turn to our gospel reading (Luke 24:13-35). This gave us the story of Jesus’ encounter with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Now much has been made of this kind of accompanied journey, so much that we even have a Christian nurture course named after it, the Emmaus course. In this those enquiring are to be accompanied in their journey and mentored on the way. The hope is that they will have their eyes opened to the hidden Christ who beckons and needs to be identified, but is already present. We do not take Christ anywhere. He is already there ahead of us. What we do is act as a midwife for his revelation; we help others to see him. But they do have to be walking along the road in the first place and not everyone is!

The challenge I think which faces the Church is that too often we are not walking down the road to Emmaus, but have found our own private route which no one else knows about. So not surprisingly, we are not going to encounter anyone along the way. And so we can tinker with our services, which is important, we can commission studies and consider their findings, we can immerse ourselves in all sorts of busy-ness, but are actually unlikely to have much impact on anyone, except those who stumble upon us or make the effort to find us.

It is at this point that a little conflict breaks out inside me. Actually it has the potential to be a big conflict! I have a passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ. All of us are supposed to have this, and I doubt I am alone - indeed I hope not! But I am also the Vicar of this institutional church with a grade 1 listed building to keep up. There are times when these work in harmony, but when they seem to conflict, we need to be clear which comes first. If it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, then we are playing games and should pack it in straight away. We proclaim a crucified and resurrected Lord and so any institution that is not prepared to risk its own demise to keep its integrity is not worth bothering with. If we are not prepared to lose our life we will not find it In that we do need to decide what is integral and what is not and that is probably a whole series of sermons in itself!

As a church, as in the Church of England, we are pretty good at the Queen Mother style of funeral, but we don’t tend to be very in touch with the Diana or Paula Yates style because we are often walking down different roads.

The disciples recognised Jesus in the breaking of the bread. This may be a reference to the Eucharist, but it is certainly not a reference to traditions and particular styles. It is a reference to what lies at the heart of everything, Christ broken for us, raised for us and who calls us to join him round his table to feast in the banquet of his kingdom. If we get close enough to him, to commune deeply with the Christ who gives himself to feed us, then we will find that we are able to get close enough to others to reveal and make known the Christ who is already with them. And if we get close enough to commune with them, then we will be able to join in a celebration of his love that unites us all. For that to happen I suspect that we have a long journey to travel and some new styles to discover and affirm.

The challenge is to find Emmaus on our map and in so doing to re-Christianise this land. That is different to institutionalising it and if the institutional church comes first, then we are sunk. If we use the institution as a vehicle of the gospel then it can live and find new life. This may sound a subtle difference, but it is a spiritual difference and as such is all the difference in the world. The woman whose funeral on Tuesday reflected a by-gone age is also the woman who delighted her great-grandchildren with an impression of Ali G - “Respect”. Quite remarkable, but the kind of spark that is truly inspirational and allows institutions to find a fresh breeze to blow through them and be enlivened.

© Ian Black 2002

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