CUI SERVIRE REGNARE EST

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I've been thinking about the Anglican Second Collect at Morning Prayer, which begins: 'O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom . . .' And especially, today, about that last clause. In the Collect's original Latin, it is more absolute: "cui servire regnare est', i.e. 'to serve whom is to reign'. It's the sort of saying that, in the course of Matins or private prayers, one tends -- not to ignore, but to incorporate more or less without thinking. And yet it is challenging and deserves attention.

The first thing that strikes one is, of course, the paradox, extreme in Latin but still present in the English version. What the two have in common is the word 'serve/service', and a concept opposed to it: reigning/ruling, and freedom. Let's begin with serving. It's a concept that once was universal, then was challenged, then despised, and eventually, by many, ignored.

The feudal concept of society, never completely realised, was in the Middle Ages an ideal that structured the social imagination. It was based entirely on two complementary ideas, now yoked together on police vehicles: 'To Serve and Protect'. The structure's verticality implied that whoever one was, there was someone above one and someone below one; and that one owed service to the former and protection to the latter. The knight owed service to his King, and protection to his community; the community owed him service in return. The tenant farmer owed service to his landlord, who owed him protection, whether from brigands or neighbouring land-grabbers.

What, then, was 'service'? In one sense, it was and remained the opposite of freedom. A servant is subject to the commands, to the will, and sometimes to the whim, of his master. As the Centurion in the Gospel said, 'I am a man under authority, and I have soldiers under me. I say to a man, "Go," and he goes; I say to another, "Come," and he comes; and I say to my servant "Do this," and he does it.'(Mt 8:9) He reminds us that the complement of service is authority, i.e. legitimate power.

It is not slavery. A servant may be part of a structure; but within certain rules and limits, he is free to go, whereas a slave is not. As long as the servant is engaged, though, he is bound to do his master's bidding. A soldier also is constrained to obedience, though even a conscript is not a slave. And all service, let us not forget, has certain freedoms attached, which are sometimes the reason the servant, or the soldier, chose it. They are freed from the burden of frequent choice, from the weight of responsibility, from the anguish of individual decision.

What, on the other hand, is the 'perfect freedom' attached to the service of God? (I prefer this phrase to 'regnare', which seems to me too easy: a mere exchange or flipping of the authority/obedience relation.) In the simplest sense, it is the freedom of the King's Messenger who, by right of his master's supremacy, has priority over all other servants.

For the early Christians, this freedom meant that they had not merely a right but a duty to deny service to competing authority when its demands contradicted God's. Martyrdom was often a result; on other occasions, their very public testimony to their higher service convinced their audience. This version of the 'perfect freedom' was not confined to their era: it was still present, and evident, in the WW II concentration camps, incarnated by persons like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

For most of us, who have the privilege of living in an environment not of direct service but of semi-freedom, the case is different. Unless we are clerics, our service of God is not a direct and visible uniform, nor an evident full-time occupation. Our service, even if permanent, is necessarily diffuse and fluctuating; what, then, is our perfect freedom? It is, I believe, a freedom from less visible tyrannies that otherwise tie us down. From the leaden weight of lesser authorities and their reign over our minds and hearts, whether superiors in the workplace or joyless functionaries of government. From the fetters of depression, gloom, and fear; from the bonds of obsession, anorexia or alcoholism; from the hypnosis of media and distraction; from the seductions of politics and self-righteousness. Serving God, in prayer and simple cherishing, is a vast lifting of weights that affects every part of our humdrumlies: it is the bearable, the joyous, the glorious lightness of being.

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