Sermon for the 20th of November, 2022, Christ the King

I love that quote by Woody Allen – ‘I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’

Bill Nighy recently said in an interview: ‘I think about death 35 times a day… I know it’s gonna happen, but I think that maybe at the last minute somebody might make an exception.’

It’s something that is explored in the recent film, Living, written by Kazuo Ishiguro. Bill Nighy plays Mr Williams, a widowed civil servant in post-war County Hall. He’s been given six months to live. At that moment, he realises that he’s not been living fully, but literally shuffling paper, deferring decisions, sticking to his routine.

He finds it impossible to tell his son and daughter-in-law who share his house. Instead, he absconds from work and takes himself off to the seaside where he encounters a bohemian artist in whom he’s able to confide. He then meets and opens up to a youthful Miss Margaret Harris whose appetite for life reminds him of what it was like to be fully alive.

We tend to ignore our mortality… unless rudely confronted with it. And when we are, it makes us think deeply about what it means to really live. What does it mean to life live to the full, in all its abundance?

There is someone from this congregation who taught us how to live. Many of you will know Mick May. He started coming to St George’s in 2013, about the time I arrived. He had been told the news that he had been stricken by the asbestos cancer Mesothelioma. It’s a particularly vicious cancer that usually kills within a year. Yet Mick lasted for nine extraordinarily joyfully and action-packed years.

He was surrounded by an amazingly supportive and loving family. He had a world-class medical team. And Mick embraced those last nine years travelling the world living his passion…. Fishing. As his close friend Jonathan Aitken put it, ‘His love of fishing seemed to play a mystical role in slowing down the growth of Mick’s tumour, as he recounted in his charming memoir Cancer and Pisces’, whose book launch we hosted here.

Cancer and Pisces is now a cancer charity with the aim of enhancing the lives of cancer sufferers through the therapeutic pastime of angling.

Mick had set up a very effective ex-offenders charity called Blue Sky, and he ensured the smooth transition to another offender rehabilitation charity, The Forward Trust.

And as chair of governors at Kensington Albridge Academy, he helped guide them through the awful Grenfell Tower tragedy.

This is not the life of someone who gave up on life… but rather someone who lived those last nine years to the full.

The ancient Christian tradition known as memento mori, ‘remember your death’, encourages us to live our lives with our death in front of us. It’s not meant to be morbid, but rather a way of refocussing our energy on living life fully. We’re reminded of this every year on Ash Wednesday – remember…. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.’ It links with a 15th century Christian idea called, ars moriendi, the ‘art of dying’. It examines Christian death in an effort to allow us to die well.

At Mick’s memorial service at a packed St Luke’s Chelsea, his wife Jill gave the most powerful tribute, ending with these words: ‘Mick taught us how to live…and he taught us how to die’.

And this was the result of a life well live, life to the full. It was an honour to visit him several times the week he died, holding his hand, saying compline. This was followed by cocktail hour where his six children would gather for a sip of wine and chat about the day around his bed. Faith and family: two elements that help in having a good death. ‘Mick taught us how to live…and he taught us how to die’.

This doesn’t of course make death and grief easy. Far from it. And yet, today’s celebration of Christ the King does give us the most wonderful hope. It affirms that Christ the King is Lord of the cosmos. He is the one who gathers rather than scatters. Jesus the king welcomes criminals into Paradise (Luke 23:43).



And what characterises the reign of Christ? Peace and reconciliation for all of creation, not domination and exploitation.

We also affirm that Christ is the king over death.

There is a famous sermon by c.4 John Chrysostom – he was called John Chrysostom the golden mouth, because he was such a great preacher. We say his Easter sermon every year at our Easter Vigil and I’d like to end with part of it.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Saviour has set us free.

He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hell when He descended into it.

He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of his flesh.

O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory? Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is Risen, and life is liberated! To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!