Changes along the way

Pentecost 22B
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
20 October 2024

[ video ]

Changes along the way

For several weeks now our Sunday Gospel readings have offered us glimpses of the journey taken by Jesus, his disciples and a mixed crowd of people as they headed south from Galilee to Jerusalem.

This was to be a one-way journey, although it seems that only Jesus understood that.

For everyone on that trip, life would never be the same once they arrived in Jerusalem. Again, it seems that no-one but Jesus understood any of this.

In today’s episode along the way, as we draw close to the end of the journey, we see two people from the inner circle of Jesus—James and John, the sons of Zebedee—asking for special favours when Jesus establishes God’s kingdom.

They had totally missed everything that Jesus had been seeking to teach them, and they certainly had learned nothing about servant leadership.

As we reflect on that episode this week, I invite you to set that story in the context of the journey that we are now beginning with our friends from St Thomas’ Church in North Ipswich.

I begin with a prayer that I crafted shortly after the two Special Meetings held in each parish when the decision was made to embrace a new future together. The prayer goes like this:

Imagine us—if you will—as two groups of disciples who have left Galilee behind us and are now walking together into an uncertain but shared future.

The success of that journey depends more on what lies ahead than on what lies behind us.

And there will be no privileged seats at the table of power and influence.

We are in this together.

There will certainly be changes. I do not know what they will be, but I am sure that some of them will be hard to embrace.

The key to success will be our ability to practise the way of Jesus, to embrace servant leadership.

Jesus himself came to serve and not to be served.

That is both our calling and the formula for our success as we weave two faith communities into a single ministry unit.

We need to move beyond us and them, and embrace the new reality of us together.

If—when—we achieve that, we shall have transformed our local congregations, and perhaps also reinvented the Anglican mission in the heart of Ipswich.

Imagine a church that seeks to serve rather than scold.

Imagine a church where vulnerable people are safe.

Imagine a church where seekers are welcome.

Imagine a church with confidence in the good news and a humility about its task.

Imagine a church with deep roots in the past and bold dreams for the future.

That can be us, if we embrace servant leadership … 

Let me close by reading that prayer again: