Sermon for the Consecration of the Rev. Amy Dafler Meaux
Grace & Holy Trinity Cathedral, Kansas City, Missouri
Isaiah 2:2-4; Luke 10:1-9
May 3, 2025
Well, it is right, and a good and joyful
thing, for all of us to be gathered here this morning, as we witness nothing
less than the kingdom of God coming near in Bishop-Elect Amy’s consecration. As we celebrate, it certainly seems this day
is all about her. But Amy would be the
first to say, “No, no – it’s about y’all.” And she’d be right. After all, in the reading we just heard, Jesus
isn’t sending out one super-apostle to bring in the harvest. So, although only one of us is being
consecrated today, all of us are being sent.
Now, you clergy from here in West Missouri
– you may be thinking, “Didn’t I just hear a sermon on this Gospel reading? And didn’t I hear it right here in this room?”
Yes, you did. It was Bishop-Elect Amy’s text for the
Chrismal Eucharist two and a half weeks ago. So, she and I get to play a little “dueling
sermons” with this story.
But before we go there, I want to make a
stop at our Old Testament reading. Hear
again the word of the prophet Isaiah: “‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of
the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and
that we may walk in his paths.’ For out
of Zion shall go forth instruction…” (2:3). Or, for us in West Missouri, maybe the text
should say, “Out of Kansas City shall go forth instruction.” I mean, don’t you feel a bit like you’re
climbing the mountain of the Lord when you climb the long staircase to the
bishop’s office in our diocesan center?
As we ascend that holy hill, we wonder just what we’ll find up there. We might fear we’ll find judgment. (Oh, wait, maybe that’s just me.) Perhaps even worse, we fear we’ll find pleasantries
– kind words lacking the power to heal. Or,
maybe worst of all, we fear we’ll find indifference. As we climb those steps, we wonder: Will the
bishop on the mountaintop give a hoot about my church – or me?
If you’ve spent any time with Bishop-Elect
Amy, you know the answer. It’s, “Yes.”
Whether she’s eating cookies with you
after worship, or holding your hand in the hospital, or telling you hard truth,
she is there – locked in, no matter what you’re bringing.
And with that gift of her relational
wiring, Amy will continue Bishop Diane Jardine Bruce’s good work to teach us
what Isaiah says we’re supposed to be learning when we go up the mountain of
the Lord, which is how to beat our swords into plowshares. If you’ve been around here any length of time,
you know: In West Missouri, we like to grouse about the person at the top of that
long flight of stairs. We sometimes
presume ill intent – not just about the bishop but about our fellow travelers
along the Way. And we like to
triangulate. Boy, do we like to
triangulate. Now, I’m sure all of you
outside West Missouri know nothing about things like this…. Well, we’ve been blessed to have a bishop-provisional
at the top of those stairs who’s helped us work on these unhelpful patterns. And we’re now blessed with a bishop-elect who’ll
continue teaching us to beat our relational swords into plowshares.
How? Through this simple yet divine wisdom: “Do the
next right thing.” It’s one of Amy’s mantras, actually, but specifically in
this case: When tempted to grouse to someone else, do the next right thing and
talk to the person you need to talk to.
Turns out, that advice to do the next
right thing is also what will guide us to move beyond our relational challenges
and take our next steps in mission, revealing God’s reign and rule in the
communities and neighborhoods of West Missouri. Now, let’s pick up that reading from Luke’s
Gospel. When Bishop-Elect Amy stood in
this pulpit two and a half weeks ago, she asked us whether we were ready to join
the 70. “What do you think?” she asked. No mapping out the journey; no cash in your
pocket; no luggage; no shoes, even. Sound like fun?
Well, some of us were thinking, “Yeah, you
bet. Let’s leave tomorrow.” Some of us have been waiting with eager
longing for the kairotic moment when God’s mission aligns with renewed zeal
among the people of West Missouri, this kairotic moment, when we who
stand as Jackson Kemper’s heirs are ready once again to make our way along the
rivers and routes of this good land to the next village Jesus wants to bless. Some of us have been waiting, and now we’re
ready to go.
Well, maybe not so fast. At least not so fast that our initial burst of
inspiration might be too quickly spent – and leave us spent, too. So, instead? As we go out for the harvest, play the long
game. Build relationships. Listen, like your life depends on it. Come alongside those who are strangers now,
and remain with them so you can learn not what you want to give them but
what they need from Jesus. That’s how
God uses us to “cure the sick” we find among us today (Luke 10:9): those
afflicted with hunger on every level, with disconnection, with hopelessness,
with despair that sees the news and asks, “Really – this is as good as it
gets?” As Bishop-Elect Amy said from
this pulpit two and a half weeks ago, “We have one job – the Gospel. And every time our communities and our
churches and our ministries and our lives bring hope, the kingdom of God is
near to us.”1
So, how do we go about doing that one job?
By doing the next right thing.
You know, doing that next right thing
usually doesn’t feel very triumphant. At
least in this chapter of eternal life, the kingdom of God doesn’t come with
trumpets and cymbals. And, by the way, when
it does come with trumpets and cymbals, it sure won’t be any of us
taking center stage. No, in this chapter
of eternal life, we reveal the reign and rule of God simply by doing the next
right thing in the particular contexts we’re blessed to serve.
We’ve seen it over and over again in nearly
200 years of mission by Missouri Episcopalians. We saw it in 1836 when Jackson Kemper insisted
on planting a church 150 miles upriver from St. Louis, in Boonville, when there
were many closer ports. We saw it in the
cold November of 1857 when Deacon Joseph Corbyn rode out from Independence on a
mule to serve people in the small town of Kansas City.2 We saw it in 1859 when Marie Burden in
Springfield wrote the priest at Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis to send
someone to baptize her daughter; Marie and two other people were the
congregation for the first service of what would become Springfield’s Christ
Church.3 We saw it when Grace
Church in Carthage was organized in 18694 and just five years later
started a mission in Joplin that became St. Phillip’s.5 We saw it in 1882 when Fr. Henry David Jardine
and others at St. Mary’s in Kansas City saw a need to serve people with no
access to health care and organized what eventually became St. Luke’s Health
System.6 We saw it again in
1882 when Fr. Charles Cummings organized St. Augustine’s in Kansas City to
serve those unwelcome in white Episcopal congregations7 – and then
St. Aug’s persevered against ecclesial racism for 68 years before being
admitted as the parish it had long qualified to be.8 We saw it in 1912 when Fr. Robert Spencer,
before becoming bishop, opened up Trinity Church in Kansas City to migrant
railroad workers and, when asked for a quote, told the newspaper, “This is Christ’s
house. He would have taken them in…. There is no story” here.9 We saw it when West Missouri Episcopalians
gave more than $113,000 in today’s money to fund mission work during the depth
of the Depression.10 We saw
it in church planting from the 1950s to the 2000s, giving birth to
congregations from Raytown to Camdenton to Noel. We saw it in 1991 when we named a diocesan
missioner to people who speak Spanish, eventually funding it for full-time work
and now yearning to expand it further.
And we see it today. We see it in our witness, in Springfield and
St. Joseph so far, to remember and reconcile from West Missouri’s 25 lynchings.
We see it in welcome and witness for
members of the LGBTQ+ community and people with disabilities, not just in public
events but in parish leadership. We see
it in “Wear Orange” Sundays and other work against gun violence. We see it in ministries to serve people who
are hungry, as well as people hungry for welcome and connection over a cup of
coffee. And we see it in one-insulated congregations
supporting each other beyond paying their assessments – in fact, in the baptism
of a new member, a high-school senior, at Christ Church in Lexington on Easter
Day.
None of these in-breakings of God’s reign
came with trumpets and cymbals. Instead,
each expression of our missional DNA was simply the next right thing for Jesus’
laborers in the field to do.
Now, even when it is the next right
thing, there’s no guarantee it’ll last forever. In 1890, at West
Missouri’s first convention, our diocese had 54 congregations in 46
communities.11 Today, we have
47 congregations in 36 communities. So, to tell the hard truth out loud: No
congregation or ministry gets an automatic perpetual lease in God’s kingdom. And it will fall to us, as we do the next
right thing, to discern when some efforts need to give way so new efforts can arise.
Just as birth and death and resurrection
is the rhythm of Missouri’s seasons, so it is the rhythm of God’s mission.
But we’ve come to a time, thanks be to God, when we can turn down the volume of our own anxieties enough to ask Jesus where and how our next expressions of mission should be. For that, I’m grateful to all who’ve stepped up in diocesan leadership over the past three and a half years, doing the work of asking hard questions, hearing truth in love, and finding our path forward. I’m grateful to Bishop Diane for showing us how to travel that holy way. And I’m deeply grateful that our Lord, who sends us out “like lambs into the midst of wolves” (Luke 10:3), has given us a next shepherd wise enough to know she won’t have all the answers for us suppliants climbing the mountain to her office. Instead, our next shepherd knows how to listen to each and every sheep that bleats at her. She knows how to lead us to trust God and ourselves enough to do the next right thing. And she knows how to lean in, in every conversation, to show us that, indeed, the kingdom of God “has come near” (Luke 10:9).
1.
Meaux,
Amy Dafler. Sermon for the Diocese of West Missouri Renewal of Clergy Vows,
April 15, 2025. Available at: https://diowestmo.org/watch-the-clergy-renewal-of-vows-service-april-15-2025/.
Accessed May 2, 2025.
2.
Welles,
C.B.F van Alstyne. A Documentary History of the Episcopal Church in West
Missouri. Chillicothe, MO: Community Press, 1964. 41.
3.
Welles,
43-44.
4.
Grace
Episcopal Church, Carthage, Missouri. “About Grace.” Available at: https://gracecarthage.com/about/.
Accessed May 2, 2025.
5.
Welles,
69.
6.
St.
Luke’s Health System. “History.” Available at: https://www.saintlukeskc.org/history.
Accessed May 2, 2025.
7.
St.
Augustine’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City, Missouri. “Our History.” Available
at: https://staugustineskc.org/our-history/.
Accessed May 2, 2025.
8.
Welles,
215.
9.
Spicer,
Kathryn. “The Unsuspecting Missionary: Bishop Robert Nelson Spencer and the
Diocese of West Missouri.” Paper written in commemoration of the 125th
anniversary of the Diocese of West Missouri. 2014. Available in the diocesan
archives. 7.
10.
Spicer,
11-12.
11.
Journal of the Primary Convention, Diocese of West
Missouri. Convened at Grace Church, Kansas City, June 3, 1890. Available in the
diocesan archives. 6.
