Jackson Kemper
Gary Hall
Seabury-Western
May 22, 2007
Last week at the Senior Retreat I learned a lot of Seabury lore of which I had previously been ignorant. Though there were several choice morsels shared, I think my favorite came from Matthew Butterbaugh, who told of his fascination with last year’s idea of alternating “Seabury” and “Western” liturgies. What, to Matthew, would a “Western” liturgy consist of? In answer to his own question, he suddenly burst forth in a rendition of the Collect for Purity set to the “Bonanza” TV show theme:
Almighty
God to you all hearts are open,
All
desires known, and no se-e-crets are hid!
Matthew
went on in that way for a while, and wild west favorites from the “Rawhide” theme
to “Happy Trails to You” and “Back in the Saddle” were
served up as, respectively, the sursum corda, the fraction anthem, and the
pontifical blessing. It does my heart good to know that, though western
culture and religious literacy may be going to hell all around us, we are
sending forth graduates who can adapt any liturgy to the Grand Ol’ Opry.
I thought
about Matthew’s western liturgy over the weekend as I turned my homiletical
ear toward Jackson Kemper, the bishop who evangelized this part of the world
(then known as the Northwest) and wondered how one could sing his praises--
perhaps to the tune of the “Davy Crockett” show so popular in
my own youth?
Jackson,
Jackson Kemper
Founded
the Biretta Belt . . .
I could go on in this vein, but lunch will be served after this service,
and I don’t want to put you off your food.
There are
many reasons for those of us who live, study, and work in Chicago to give thanks
for the life and ministry of Jackson Kemper. Most importantly, we remember
him because it was he who evangelized the dioceses which surround Lake Michigan
on behalf of the Episcopal Church. We call these dioceses “the
biretta belt” because they reflect the Anglo Catholic churchmanship which
was characteristic of Kemper’s piety. But, of all Kemper’s
accomplishments, here is one which I have always valued just slightly above
all the rest: Jackson Kemper, arguably the spikiest bishop in the 19th
century Episcopal Church, learned most of what he knew about priestcraft from
none other than William White, the first bishop of Pennsylvania and perhaps
the lowest church cleric in the early days of our polity. That William
White and Jackson Kemper (let alone John Henry Hobart, who also put in time
with White in Philadelphia) were able not only to work together but to part
on friendly terms says something deeply powerful to me about the comprehensive
nature of the church. It also says something to me about what we mean when
we talk about Evangelism.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything
that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of
the age." –Matthew 28
One of the
great contributions of the 19th century Episcopal Church was the way it reimagined
the role and office of bishop. One reason the English refused to consent
to Samuel Seabury’s consecration was that they could not imagine a bishop
who would not function as a British nobleman. They could not conceive
of how the impoverished and new American church could maintain bishops with
all the luxurious trappings they were accustomed to. Indeed the first
generation of American bishops—White, Seabury, Prevoost, functioned very
much like settled American gentlemen. But the second generation of American
bishops—Jackson Kemper, John Henry Hobart, Philander Chase—these
folks understood that extending the church in this new American context meant
thinking about the episcopate in a new way. In place of the established
English model of the settled lordly prince of the church, nineteenth century
American bishops reimagined their ministries in new and surprising ways—ways
which, as any faithful reader of Lesser Feasts and Fasts will observe,
are consistent with the ways earlier missionary bishops did their work, especially
in the period between the fall of Rome and the rise of the modern nation
state. Jackson
Kemper is a sign for us, then, not only of the glory of our past but for
the kind of imaginative strategy we must adopt if the church is to thrive
in this new century.
Love my
job as much as I do, there are days when I wonder exactly what we are up to
in theological education. We face challenges easily the equal of those
faced by Kemper and Hobart and Chase: the polity we have lived with since 1789
seems to be entering its death throes. Parishes, dioceses, seminaries,
even the national church are scrambling for resources, people, and leadership. Faced
with enormous opportunities and challenges for new ways of building faith communities,
all of us in the church seem to be acting as if the present system will work
if we just get more energetic and visionary people to staff it. Instead of
generating itinerant missionaries like Jackson Kemper who will imagine and
build sustainable faith communities in non traditional settings, we seem to
be socializing people to the clique-like culture of a church which functions
like a private club. When we talk about a new vision for Seabury it is
not, I hope, an attempt to rearrange the proverbial deck chairs on the
Titanic. It is an attempt to chart a new course for the school and
the church which the school serves in a time when all institutional bets
seem to be off.
I’m enormously hopeful about the possibilities of the present moment, and I’ve worked in this church long enough to know that in bringing about the changes we need it will be far easier to get forgiveness than permission. As Little Carmine said to Tony Soprano in one of his classic mixed metaphors last Sunday night, “You're at the precipice of an enormous crossroads.” We are at the precipice of an enormous crossroads. And if we are faithful to the example of Jackson Kemper, we will see our way clearly on the way ahead. Amen.