Emily Lyons

Dear Friends,

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Jackson Kemper, missionary bishop.

Between his consecration in 1835 and his death in 1870, Kemper did much to expand the reach of the Episcopal Church, establishing many dioceses west of the Mississippi.

In Wisconsin he founded Racine College and Nashotah House. He also evangelized among the Oneida people and oversaw the translation of scripture into their language.

Kemper must have been an especially vigorous and determined man to accomplish all he did across vast areas of what was then the western frontier. While this is admirable, I find Kemper’s missionary work among the Oneida harder to celebrate.

The biographical information about Kemper I was able to access provides little information about what relations between him and the Oneida community were like, or whether they welcomed his mission work.

For centuries, white Christian evangelism has gone hand in hand with colonial violence, and the Episcopal Church has participated in its share of this. Nevertheless, Kemper’s feast day is an opportunity to examine how this complicated legacy informs the Episcopal church in the present.

Feast days have separate readings in addition to the standard daily office readings, but I find the office readings for today more instructive in working through this theme.

Today’s passage from Luke recounts the feeding of the five thousand. I always thought the important part of this story was the miracle itself, demonstrating God’s power to transform five loaves and two fish into food enough for a multitude.

However, in light of today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans, I see a greater emphasis on Christ’s hospitality.

“Hospitality,” etymologically related to “hotel” and “hospital,” derives from Latin hospes, which means both guest and host. To be hospitable in the sense that Jesus is hospitable is to be both.

As Paul writes to the Romans, we should “welcome one another, just as Christ has welcomed you,” and he goes on to speak of Jesus as a servant sent not only for the Jews, but for all of humanity.

Christ’s hospitality, as demonstrated by his feeding of the five thousand, is big enough to serve all who hunger and thirst.

What does missionary work mean in the Episcopal Church of the 21st century? I can only say that I hope it means being hospitable.

In Christ,

—Emily