Jackson Kemper and Augustine of Canterbury -- Bishops on a Mission!

In 1835, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church decided that every member of the Church was a "missionary" -- and decreed that all members of the Church were concurrently members of "The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society". (By the way, the name is still in use on the official documents of the Church!) The embodiment of this ideal of a church on a mission was Jackson Kemper, the man elected by General Convention to be a bishop in "the wilderness" of the then far western territories of the United States (Missouri and Indiana to be precise). Over the course of his ministry, Kemper also worked in the territories that eventually became the states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas. He spent the last eleven years of his life as the first Bishop of Wisconsin.

But as innovative as the idea of a missionary bishop was for the 19th century Episcopal Church, it was nothing new in the broader scope of Church history. At the end of the sixth century, Pope Gregory sent a Benedictine monk to England to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons. What Gregory's missionary discovered, upon his arrival, was a variety and disparity of Christian practices that already existed in his mission field -- right alongside a number of other non-Christian religious practices. Eventually that monk, whose name was Augustine, was ordained to the episcopate and named "Archbishop of the English Nation". He is celebrated as the First Archbishop of Canterbury.

These two men -- separated by over 1200 years -- embodied an understanding of Church and the role of a bishop that I fear has been lost in our time. While I'm certain that there were administrative tasks demanding their attention, I find it difficult to believe that the perpetual care and feeding of the ecclesiastical machine was at the top of their priority lists. These two bishops were sent with similar mandates -- spread the Good News to those who have not heard it, baptize people into the Faith, and then teach them the Faith into which they had been baptized. Gather the Church and then shepherd it faithfully.

I've thought quite a bit about these two bishops over the past several days. I wonder how they would have reacted to the way church is "done" none among the majority of "mainliners". True, some things are changing. But the fact remains that we church folks seem to have penchant for occupying ourselves with ever-increasing numbers of meetings. Meetings where we talk so much about the mission of the Church we confuse talking about mission with actually doing mission. Sometimes we forget that God is already at work in the world and that we are called to participate in that work.

As a priest, I'm not too keen on giving bishops advice about how to be bishops -- that's someone else's job. But the missionary enterprises of Kemper and Augustine call me to examine my own work in the mission field that exists right outside of the big, red doors of Trinity Church. How in the world can the people of this parish -- people with real lives full of real concerns -- possibly catch a vision for participating in God's mission in the world if their priest is little more than a private, on-call chaplain or religious functionary who rarely (if ever) gets out of the confines of "the office"? How can I expect people to share the Gospel with their friends and neighbors in an authentic fashion if they don't see me leading the way?

Jesus once told his disciples to "Go into all the world..." (Matthew 28:19ff). Augustine left the familiar world of his monastery and traveled to what was then the wilds of England. Jackson Kemper wholeheartedly invested his heart and soul in people and places far from many of the comforts of his earlier life. Surely the least I can do is go into never-wilds of Wauwatosa and creatively spread a bit of the Good News of God in Christ! I'm fairly certain there are people here who need to hear it.

Lord God, in your providence Jackson Kemper was chosen first missionary bishop in this land, and by his arduous labor and travel congregations were established in scattered settlements of the West: Grant that the Church may always be faithful to its mission, and have the vision, courage, and perseverance to make known to all people the Good News of Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.