Bishop Samuel Seabury
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Matthew 9:35-38, NRSVUE
November 14 is the day in the church calendar that is set aside to celebrate the Consecration of Samuel Seabury, “the first Bishop of the Anglican Communion in the United States.”1
In the colonies before the American Revolution, their bishops were not present. To be ordained a priest, one had to travel to England where there were bishops. Part of the ordination vows for every priest included obedience to the British monarch. It is easy to see how that was problematic following the independence of the United States. After debating about the place of bishops in the new country, it was decided that the orders of ordained clergy, deacons, priests, and bishops would be maintained.
An assembly of clergy in Connecticut chose Samuel Seabury to travel to England and seek ordination as a bishop. Although he was rejected by the English bishops, he was eventually consecrated by bishops in Scotland. “In Aberdeen, 14 November 1784, Samuel Seabury was consecrated to the Episcopate by the Bishop and the Bishop Coadjutor of Aberdeen and the Bishop of Ross and Caithness. He thus became part of the unbroken chain of bishops that links the Church today with the Church of the Apostles.”2 Afterward, because there was a bishop in the U.S., ordinations of priests could take place in the colonies without having to take a vow of obedience to the British crown.
In the new United States, the harvest was plentiful but the laborers few, in terms of ordained clergy. Therefore, the faithful remnants of clergy worked together and prayed for more laborers. They prayed for a way to fill the empty places left by the clergy members who returned to England during the revolution.
While it is good to have enough clergy members to fill specific roles, each Christian also has an important in filling the role of laborers in the harvest: people who work to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with those who do not yet know His love. How might you be a laborer for Christ?
2 Ibid.
