For Absalom

On Sunday, February 12, Episcopal Churches across the country commemorated the Feast of Absalom Jones, the first person of African descent ordained a priest in the United States. 

Absalom Jones from a portrait by Raphaelle Peale.

In 2021, the Episcopal Church, under the leadership of our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, in an effort to live into its call of racial reconciliation, established the Absalom Jones Fund to provide scholarships to the only two Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the country founded by the Episcopal Church: St Augustine’s University in Raleigh, and Voorhees University in Denmark, SC. These institutions, as Bishop Curry pointed out in his pastoral letter that went out last month, are training Black leaders of the future, who will go forth and build a more just and equitable society for all of God’s children in the spirit of Absalom Jones, who understood that education was the key to empowerment.

But who was Absalom Jones? When I asked that question of my parishioners on Sunday - a church filled with white faces - I could count on one hand the number of folks who had even heard his name before. I’ll admit that I wasn’t familiar with his story until I was a seminarian, but it’s a story that highlights both the wonderful and the heartbreaking aspects of the Episcopal Church and its heritage. In observance of his feast day, my parish honored Absalom Jones by designating our offering on Sunday to go to the Absalom Jones Fund, and the Church as a whole share his story this week, let us pray that we be bold in our mission to live into those baptismal promises to seek and serve Christ in ALL persons and to proclaim by both our words and our examples the Good News of God in Christ, because Blessed Absalom did just that.

His story began in Sussex County, Delaware when he was born into slavery on November 7, 1746. It could’ve ended there, as it did for so many others who have gone nameless, but God had other plans. 

He was named Absalom after King David’s most favored son from the Second Book of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. But where the biblical Absalom’s story ended in tragedy, this Absalom persevered. He managed to learn how to read with the New Testament as his main resource. At 16 he and his mother, sister, and five brothers were sold to a farmer, who turned around and sold Absalom’s mother and siblings and promptly moved, with Absalom, to Philadelphia. Like so many other families ripped apart by American slavery, they were never reunited. 

Absalom was permitted to attend a Free School; that is, a nighttime school run by Quakers, which is where he learned more fully to read and write. Once the door had been opened, Absalom proceeded to kick it down. He continued to read and to educate himself as much as possible, even when he was sold once again to a man named Wynkop – who was listed as a member of the Vestry of Christ Church, Philadelphia. Around the same time he was sold again, Absalom married a slave girl by the name of Mary King – who was owned by a neighbor of Mr. Wynkop - on January 4, 1770. 

Adelphi Free School in what is now the Chinatown district of Philadelphia.

By 1778 Absalom managed to purchase his wife’s freedom during the height of the American Revolution. The law stated that children took on the status of their mother, so if a woman was enslaved, so was the child. So for the sake of his future children, Absalom made sure his wife would be free, even while he continued to be enslaved. Six years later, after Absalom wrote to him and perhaps inspired by some of the radical ideals of this new United States of America, Mr. Wynkop manumitted Absalom- which is the process of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Absalom then took the surname ‘Jones,’ which, according to one story from a PBS report in 2009, was as an indication of his fully American identity.

As was often the case, the Church served as the source for hope and the promise of freedom for so many enslaved peoples. Absalom had been involved in the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was founded in 1784 as a new denomination by Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke. He served as a lay minister at St. George’s in Philadelphia with his friend Richard Allen, and together they established the Free African Society to aid in the emancipation of slaves and provide education, food, and other resources for newly freed Black folks. As a result, the Black membership of St. George’s exploded.

Richard Allen, friend and colleague of Absalom Jones, who would go on to found the AME Church.

You can probably guess what happened next. The white parishioners were uncomfortable that all these new folks would upset their establishment, and so the Vestry voted in 1792 to force Black worshippers to the balcony without any prior notice; and when Absalom, Richard, and others came to worship and sat in their regular pews, they were tapped on the shoulder by the ushers and told they had to go upstairs to worship. They all promptly walked and never came back. 

You might wish this was a kind of one-off situation, especially since it was a northern church, but the truth is that tensions were high around that time after the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1789, where Methodists and Black Episcopalians were each hoping to have seat, voice, and vote at the Church’s governing body, but both were turned away. The result was that the Methodist Church became its own full-fledged denomination – and the largest in the country – and many Black folks decided the Episcopal Church was not for them.

Absalom and Richard wanted to found a church for Black folks where they wouldn’t have to acquiesce to racist conditions. The result was First African Church in Philly, which they founded in 1792, the same year they walked out of St. George’s. While Richard wanted it to be a Methodist congregation, Absalom sought approval from William White, the Bishop of Pennsylvania and first Presiding Bishop, to admit them into the Episcopal Church. It was and became known as the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, with Absalom serving as lay leader while he studied for ordination to become the church’s rector. Richard Allen, meanwhile, founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church that same year and became its first bishop in 1816. The two of them remained lifelong friends and collaborators.

The current version of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia.

In 1802 Absalom became the first African American to be ordained a priest in the United States. As rector of St. Thomas he was known as a great preacher, and some white folks even said he had hypnotic powers over his congregation. He started a tradition of preaching an anti-slavery sermon on New Year’s Day, and when the Constitutionally-mandated end of the African slave trade occurred on New Year’s Day, 1808, he preached what he called a ‘Thanksgiving Sermon,’ which was published and brought him renown throughout the country. He took part in petitioning Congress on multiple occasions to end the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which not only forced runaway slaves back into bondage but often resulted in free men and women being kidnapped and sold into bondage in slave states – think of the film 12 Years a Slave. He decried the legislation and called for “some remedy for an evil of such magnitude.” Despite his pleas on the moral and ethical ground that God abhorred such an institution, each of his petitions failed. 

Absalom continued to be an outspoken advocate for the abolition of slavery as a whole for the remainder of his life and a fixture in Philadelphia, helping to found day schools for Black children because they weren’t permitted to go to public school with white kids. He never stopped dreaming, praying, and working for the Beloved Community that he heard Jesus call people to build, all the way to his death on February 13, 1818. He is interned at the current edition of St. Thomas Church.

In the section of the Sermon on the Mount that we heard in church on Sunday, Jesus reminds the people that it is not enough to simply follow the letter of the Law, especially if the spirit of the Law is neglected. White folks in Absalom Jones’ time followed the letter of their own Law, both when they enslaved his family and when they forced him and others to worship in their church balconies. It is not enough for us to simply look at the way things are and say, “Well, that’s just the way it is and nothing can be done.” Absalom Jones didn’t do that. He may not have lived to see the full abolition of his people, but he never stopped working toward that goal. He didn’t look at the way things were and said it was fine, instead he looked at it all through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus, which called him then, calls us now, called those folks on the mount who listened to Jesus, to dream of something different, to lives of transformation and reconciliation. To do that means to tread through troublesome waters, to tell hard truths, to be hurt by folks you thought cared. It is no easy task, which is why nearly everyone eventually abandoned Jesus. But blessedly, Jesus never abandons us. He never abandoned Absalom Jones, or Richard Allen, or Martin Luther King, or anyone else who has stood up for full rights and privileges and freedoms of all God’s children.

I may look out in my own congregation and see a church full of white folks, but that doesn’t mean this feast day shouldn't matter; in fact, I’d say we white folks desperately need to take part in it. We need to hear Absalom’s story and those of all of our Black siblings who have been wounded by the Church but whose love for Jesus has endured. We need to admit our own blindspots, especially in times when we’ve just been following the rules instead of embracing one another. We need to hope and work for a time when Sunday mornings are not the most segregated hour in America. This day is for all of us, in the sure and certain hope that the dream of Jesus, the dream of shalom for all God’s people, can and will be achieved. We will do it, with God’s help. Blessed Absalom Jones, pray for us. 

Preserve & Illuminate

'Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”'

--Matthew 5: 13-20

When I was growing up, my mother would sing to me and my dog as we nodded off to sleep. She kept this practice going until I was roughly 10 years old. One of the songs she would sing most often, sitting in the little rocking chair that now sits in our home, was This Little Light of Mine. I can still hear her particular cadence and the way she sang it, and to this day it feels like everyone else is singing it wrong if they don’t hit the notes and pitch that she did! It’s a sweet little song that has stuck with me, and I loved that we’re sang it as our closing hymn this past Sunday

This Little Light of Mine is a song whose words are lifted straight from our Gospel text this week, this section of the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus admonishes the people listening to him to be “salt of the earth and the light of the world.” It’s such a well-known piece of the Gospel that the line “let your light shine before others” is imprinted on the back of our parish's t-shirts, and I’ve very often used it at the bidding of the offertory in our worship services. There are, though, a couple of things that Jesus says regarding salt and light that don’t really make sense, but by digging into them we get a clearer understanding of Jesus’ message to that crowd on that mount, and to all of us now.

Jesus first wonders what would happen if salt lost its taste. Well, that’s a good question, Jesus, because it’s not scientifically possible. Salt cannot lose its taste; it cannot lose its saltiness. He then points out that no one allows a light to lose its shine by putting it under a bushel basket – and there’s that adorable moment in This Little Light of Mine when we go “Hide it under a bushel? NO!! I’m gonna let it shine!” It’s an usual image because nobody would even think of putting a candle or oil lamp under a bushel basket because it would just set the bushel on fire! Maybe some folks in the crowd were left scratching their heads at these two somewhat ridiculous illustrations, but this is Jesus at his best, using hyperbole and absurd examples to get his point across. 

And that point is this: that salt and light cannot lose their properties, they cannot not be what God made them to be and do what God made them to do without devolving into something else. If salt lost its taste, it’s not salt anymore. If a light were snuffed out, it’s not light anymore. And YOU, Jesus says to the crowd, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. You folks that I’ve just told are blessed of God – you hungry, meek, merciful, reviled peacemakers – you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and like salt and light, you cannot not be what God made you to be or do what God made you to do. 

What God made them to be – and made us to be – is disciples of Jesus. What God made them to do – ad made us to do – are the actions of Jesus. And so, like that crowd that so eagerly listened to Jesus, if we are to be his disciples, then we must, like Jesus himself, season the world with love – like salt – and illuminate the world with grace – like light. When we cease to do these things, we cease to be disciples of Jesus. Like salt that has lost its saltiness or light that has lost its shine, we would devolve into something else. Call it what you want, but you can’t call it Christian. This is the lesson of the salt and the light. 

There is one significant element of being salt and light, of being disciples of Jesus, and that is being in right relationship with God and with one another. This is the reason Jesus follows up the metaphor of salt and light with a quick lesson on the Law. Many have looked at Jesus and seen a person – seen a rabbi, an authority figure – who disobeys the Law. He doesn’t follow kosher, doesn’t wash his hands, doesn’t obey the Sabbath, interacts with women, heals foreigners, and he’ll eventually be publicly executed, which, according to the Law, accounts him as accursed. But Jesus makes clear that he has not come to abolish or trample on the Law at all, but instead he has come to fulfill it. How? By his very person, his very presence, his very example of how to live in right relationship with God and others. This is again where salt and light work as a teaching tool for Jesus because salt is a preservative, and those who were so zealous for preserving the Law had forgotten how to be in relationship with others, they had put the Law above people and forgotten the important lesson that the Law was made for people, not the other way around, and while they wanted to preserve the Law’s letter, Jesus was more interested in preserving its spirit. For Jesus is the very light of the world that had come to illuminate the Law, and he calls them – and us – to remember that when life becomes more about obeying the rules than it does about people and their sorts and conditions, then we have sinned – that is, we have missed the mark, the literal meaning of the Greek word amartia, which is the archery term that our Scriptures translate as sin. 

How we live in relationship with God is reflected in how we live in relationship with others. How we love others is reflected in how we love God. This is what being salt and light – both preserving and illuminating – are all about, and Jesus will circle back to this point near the end of the Sermon on the Mount when he reminds them in Matthew 7, verse 12 that the whole Law is summarized in the commandments to love God and love neighbor – what we call the Golden Rule. If it sounds like a big responsibility, well, it kinda is. How do we keep up being salt and light and loving others and God all the time, when we ourselves get tossed and turned by the raging storms of life?

Fortunately, we can remember that it really isn’t up to us, so long as we can let go and let Jesus do his thing. That's what grace is all about, after all. Jesus tells us to let our light shine, but have you noticed that there is only one person in the Gospel who ever literally shines? That’s Jesus when he’s up on Mount Tabor and is visited by Moses and Elijah and the voice of God says, “This is my Son, listen to him!” That moment is the Transfiguration, and we’ll hear about it once again on the Sunday before Lent begins. Jesus is the only one who has ever truly shone with the divine light, so it’s not up to us to be “on” all the time or try our damndest to be the best possible Jesus follower there ever was, to be the tastiest salt and brightest light, we just let him do the work through us. Our light can only shine in the context of Jesus, when we allow him to shine through us, when we let go of our own egos and our own need for control and let Jesus take over. It’s kenosis, the Greek word Paul uses for emptying oneself, or what my spiritual director calls “spiritual surrender,” and it is the key to fully integrating our lives into that of Jesus.

We can preserve the gifts of the past while illuminating a new way forward, and we can be in right relationship with God and each other, and we can do all these things because it's Jesus who is doing it all in us and through us. Honestly, we cannot help but be both a preservative and a beacon for the future because, like Jesus points out, salt can’t lose its taste and light can’t lose its shine without no longer being salt or light. We Christians can’t stop loving God and others, we can’t stop doing the work of Jesus to create Beloved Community that looks more and more like the Kingdom of God, and we can’t stop putting people above institutions and powers and principalities without no longer being Christians ourselves. So be the salt and season this world with love. And let your light, the Christ light that is in you, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.