'England expects...' | Reflections on duty | Trafalgar day 2026

Nelson was possibly England’s greatest hero, a military genius, and a brilliant commander of men.

That puts him at the top of a plinth in Trafalgar Square, in the centre of London, 51 metres above us all.

But Nelson was also quite like us.

He was born in this village. His dad was rector here. He would have held these keys. He was a Norfolk man, loved the place (called it ‘dear Burnham’), and we have a letter in which he says that he expects to be buried here.

And he was also like us because, despite his brilliance, he was also very flawed. There was his failed marriage, his treatment of Fanny, his – at times – very wrong calls, and his craving for recognition and titles.
And that does not make him someone we should ditch, but it makes him someone we can identify with.

And today I would like to focus on one of those things that we can both identify with and learn from.

It was an idea that was very big for him, an idea expressed in that message that Nelson shared with his fleet before the Battle of Trafalgar.

Interestingly, even then, there wasn’t a specific symbol for the word in the flag code book – so he had to spell it out: ‘England expects every man to do his DUTY’.

And, the actual words are disputed, but it is reported that one of his final comments was, ‘Thank God I have done my duty’.

Duty is not a word we use much today. And that is a loss.

To do our duty is to do what we ought to do.

It is a word that challenges the spirit of our age which often seems to tell me that whatever I want to do is OK and I can do it.

But that is the road that leads to the breakdown of relationships and community. If we are to live together, we need people to do their duty.

We have a duty to our word, if our word is not going to be  meaningless.

We have a duty to our family, to our parents, to our husbands and wives and children; We have a duty to where God has placed us – our villages and towns, communities and nation.
We have a duty to our employees and employers, those we serve and those who serve us, those who we have authority over and those in authority over us.

Peter writes, ‘Honour everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honour the emperor’ (1 Peter 2.17).

I note that Peter writes that even though Christians were suffering at the hand of the emperor, and I also note that for Peter duty to God comes before duty to emperor - even when obedience to God rather than obedience to the emperor came at terrible personal cost. 

And we have a duty to God.

Nelson got that.

We do our duty because we have to.
Some do their duty out of fear.
If I don’t do it, I’ll be in trouble. I will be sacked, or shamed, or my friends wont speak to me.

Some do it out of a sense of obligation to my self-image, to who I think I am.
Nelson had that big time. He saw himself as someone who did his duty to his country. So even if it meant standing on the deck in full regalia and not ducking as the enemy shots came flying over, that was what an officer did, and he would do it – even if it got him killed.

Or we do our duty out of loyalty to others.
The whole crew depended on each person doing what he was expected of them. If you didn’t, you were letting not only yourself down, but others down. And in a warship that was fatal.

But what about our duty to God?

Jesus tells a story of some slaves (Luke 17.7-10). 

They did not expect any reward, not even thanks. They do what they do out of a sense of obligation. They have no presumption about who they are, no self-image they need to manage, no attitude that says that they are too important to do the job that they are asked to do, no need to prove themselves to anyone. They know themselves as slaves of the master.

We do our duty to God because God is not simply 51 metres up there on a plinth above us, but because God is God.

He is our creator, our Lord and our judge. We come to worship, we pray, we read his word, we serve others – because we owe it to him. We belong to him. He is our everything. Our beginning, our creator, our identity, our meaning and purpose, our sustainer and provider, our strength, and our only ultimate hope.

So a really good answer to the question, ‘Why do you go to Church?’ is, ‘Because God is God and I should do. It is my duty to God

But that is only half the story.

The sort of duty that God is looking for, is the duty that comes not from fear but from love.

There is a huge difference between the person who is doing their service out of a sense of fear, or simple obligation, and the person who does their service out of love for the one they serve.

I wonder how far Nelson knew this.
He certainly spoke of his duty to the God who made him.
But did he know that he was loved by God, even without another honour, another title, another victory?

And how far do we know it? We can believe in God and still spend our lives trying to prove that we matter. The Christian gospel tells us that, before we have anything to show for ourselves, Christ has loved us and given himself for us.

In the Lord’s prayer, we pray, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’.

In heaven, they obey God’s will perfectly🫡

But, more importantly, in heaven, they see clearly how much God loves, gives and blesses and they do the will of God with such delight and joy.

And Jesus, the Son of God, does the will of heaven on earth. He left the plinth of heaven and went to the cross for us. And we are told that he did this out of obedience and love for his Father and us and ‘for the joy set before him’ (Hebrews 12.2)

So when we pray, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’, we are praying that we will do our duty to God on earth with perfect obedience, but that we will also do it with freedom and joy and love❤️