Trinity as model for collaborative ministry

St Thomas Church North Ipswich
Trinity Sunday
26 May 2024

Today we begin the long series of Sundays after Pentecost.

Between now and the Feast of Christ the King at the end of November we have a long series of Sundays when we explore different aspects of the faith that we share. During these “Sundays after Pentecost” the usual liturgical colour is green: a symbol of life.

We start the series of Sundays after Pentecost with the feast of the Holy Trinity.

One way that I have sometimes described Trinity Sunday is that it provides us with an opportunity to ask ourselves, What have we learned about God from everything that we have been doing since Advent Sunday last year?

Of course, the matching question as we look forward rather than backwards, is to ask: What understanding of God do we take with us as we begin this series of “Ordinary Time” (as our Catholic friends call this series of Sundays)?

On this day last year, I was the guest preacher at Holy Trinity Church, Fortitude valley where I had been inducted as the Rector some 40 plus years earlier. 

Towards the end of that sermon I offered these observations:

Our mission is not to discuss the Trinity, but to live the vision of God—and of humanity—that Jesus both taught and practised.

If people are to glimpse that there may be more to life than gadgets and status—if they are to embrace the call to compassion in everyday life—then they need us to be people who embrace the call of Jesus to imagine a world where God’s dream is realised. 

Our fancy religious words for that are “the kingdom of God” or the “reign of God,” but it is as simple as saying: imagine if the life we live reflected the inner character of God’s own self?

Indeed; imagine that!

We are called to celebrate God as the ultimate reality, the meaning beyond every explanation, and the profound love that calls everything into existence.

Today I would like to unpack those ideas with a slightly different focus.

I want to think about the significance of Trinity for the way we do church, rather than the way we live our own lives.

Of course, those two ideas are related. However, I want to focus on the idea that the Trinity offers us a model for being together and working together as people of God, as disciples of Jesus, as communities of the Spirit.

This insight emerged from a conversation that I was having with Lorraine last Monday morning. There is one brief (or not so brief) time each week when we actually get to sit down and talk about our work as Priests here in the Ipswich Anglican Community.

Most of the time we are too busy running from one task to another. But on Mondays around 10am we stop to talk about what we are doing, why we are doing it, how we might do it differently, and what kind of outcomeswe hope to see.

I indicated that I was not really sure what we are seeking to achieve in the partnership between Ipswich and North Ipswich. 

Are we actively seeking to combine the two parishes into one parish with multiple church centres? (There are several examples of that right here in Ipswich with our ecumenical partners in the Catholic and Uniting Church communities.)

Indeed, I can imagine a time when all three denominations choose to work as one ecumenical partnership, with our several churches simply being different ministry and worship sites within the one Ipswich Christian community.

That would have been unimaginable 100 years ago, and it may be too much for us to imagine right now. But I am guessing that in 100 years time it will be the case.

They will wonder why it took us so long to figure this out.

But back to St Thomas and St Paul.

I wondered out loud whether St Thomas’ Church folk are worried that St Paul’s—or the Diocese—plan to shut them down, sell them off, and take the money?

And this was before I looked up the address for St Thomas’ Church on Apple Maps and discovered there is just a 4 minute drive between our 2 churches.

From conversations with people at St Paul’s Church, I also realise that folk there may not have much interest in what happens at North Ipswich. To be frank, they have enough challenges of their own without worrying about what may be happening over here.

But we also know that several churches from the parish of Ipswich have already been closed.

And we are well aware that church engagement (not just Sunday attendance) is dropping like a stone in a pond.

As I commented in my Trinity Sunday sermon last year, it is not that we face persecution. It simply that most of our family, friends and neighbours could not care less about our religion and have no interest in getting involved at church.

So where does that leave our two Anglican communities on either side of the Bremer in the heart of Ipswich?

I think our understanding of God as Trinity offers a model for ways we can work together.

We believe that Father, Son and Spirit exist in, with and for each other.

It seems to me that this is the understanding that has to be at the basis of our shared future together, for surely our future is a shared one.

Even after just 4 Sundays here, I think I can assure you that the folk at St Paul’s Church have no interest in your property or your money.

In their better moments, and these occur more often than you might imagine, they simply want both this church and their own church to thrive as an authentic Anglican presence in our local community.

It is not about the land or the buildings.

It is not about the money.

It is not about boundaries and separate Parish Councils.

It is all about living our Christian faith in ways where we exist in, with and for each other.

We have already made a start and no doubt there will be more steps to take together in the years to come.

But the heart of the matter is the way that we put into practice the trinitarian understanding of God that lies at the very centre of our faith.

We need to be there for each other in these challenging times for people of faith, just as Father, Son and Spirit are there for each other.

Always have been.

Always will be.

This is our faith and this is our model for shared ministry as the Ipswich Anglican Community.