The Crown, On Standing Tall

In Season 03, Episode 04 of the Netflix TV Show The Crown, The Royal family is out of touch with reality. Prince Philip appears on TV, bemoaning the loss of access to his yacht, and wanting more money from the taxpayers. The press of course is vitriolic.

Prince Philip decides to attempt his own public relations to get the people to see a reality show of the Royal Family, with the hope that seeing the Royal family on TV will get people to support giving the Royal Family more money. This effort backfired and the Press has a field day with the portrayal of the royal family as slothful, sometimes stupid, out of touch people.

But the saving grace is this. Prince Philip has a daughter who is wiser than he. She tricks the most vitriolic of the reporters to interview Prince Philip's mom, Princess Alice, against Prince Philip's wishes. Princess Alice had lived as a nun and was rather unsophisticated. Prince Philip was ashamed of his own mom, Princess Alice, and kept her away from the TV crew and the press.

The reporter wrote an article entitled "Royal Saint," in which he says, "Princess Alice was born congenitally deaf. Treated horribly by people around her, she was given x-rays in his womb area to make her infertile, to reduce her libido, and given electrocutions to treat her hysteria. She could have decided to respond to this with bitterness. But she did not, she chose a life of service, often serving others at the risk of personal peril."

This was the first positive coverage of the Royal family in months. Prince Philip kept his mom away from the press because he thought she was not polished and sophisticated enough to show the royal family in a good light. But the positive coverage she got in the press ended up being the saving grace of the royal family. This reversal reminded me of Ezekiel 17:24 which says, "All the trees of the forest will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish."

God delights in blessing the marginalized.

The key part of what the reporter said is this... Princess Alice was a Royal Saint because she did not respond with bitterness to the evil that was done to her.

How did she get to that blessed place of contentment?

We get the answer to that in a conversation between Prince Philip and Princess Alice. Prince Philip apologizes for treating her badly, reconciling the estranged relationship. Princess Alice asks him, 'how is your faith?' he replies, "dormant"

Princess Alice says, "find yourself faith. It helps..." Then after a pause the Royal Saint adds, "no, it (faith) is everything."

Sometimes we are tempted to approach faith as something that can "help" us to live comfortable lives. Voltaire said, "I would rather have a servant who has faith so that he will not steal from me." This kind of way of looking at faith is the kind of faith that is there to "help" people. Faith of this kind is seen as something that helps people to be less anxious, to be more hopeful, so that one feels good about one’s life. This is not necessarily bad, but it is not complete either. The faith that God calls us to in Jesus is not this "it helps" faith, rather it is a form of "it is everything" faith.

It-helps-faith tries to use God to make the self feel good. It-is-everything-faith lives radically to desire nothing more than intimacy with God and nothing less than Christlike service to the children of God. People living this kind of Christlike live of service may be seen as being the "low tree" by the world. But these are the people who stand the tallest in God's eyes.