'Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.'
--Mark 9: 2-9
“Listen to him!” the voice said. It’s the same voice that spoke at Jesus’ baptism . At both Jesus’ baptism and here on this mountain, the voice declares Jesus’ belovedness, only now it comes with an instruction for those witnesses: listen to him.
I have to laugh because we obviously didn’t listen to him. For proof, just go up to Mt. Tabor, to the Church of the Transfiguration, and when you walk inside you will see the gorgeous high altar head of you, and to either side you will see the chapels of Moses and Elijah. Yeah, we built the dwelling places anyway! We didn’t listen. But every year this story comes around – sometimes twice in one year! – and we have the chance, again, to listen to him.
What does it mean to listen to Jesus? There’re a lot of ways to answer that, but one I suspect, would be to see every person as a child of God, a sibling, equally beloved by our Creator. To recognize the belovedness of others, however, also means acknowledging and repenting of the times when we haven’t done so, when we have missed the mark – the Greek word for that is hamartia, and it’s the word in the Bible that gets translated into English as ‘sin.’ The Episcopal Church has spent most of the last decade engaged in the holy work of racial reconciliation, acknowledging the ways we’ve missed the mark, the systemic ways in which we’ve denied the belovedness of our brothers and sisters – such as the fact that many of our churches were built on the backs of enslaved peoples and that Black folks could worship in those churches, so long as they stayed in the balcony. Through efforts like Sacred Ground and pilgrimages to holy sites of the Civil Rights Movement, this lifelong work of reconciliation has been a top priority for our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and a great many of our dioceses and parishes, including here.
In 2021 the Church established the Absalom Jones Fund, an intentional effort on or around the Feast Day of Absalom Jones – February 13 – in which folks are encouraged to lend their financial support to the only two remaining Historically Black Colleges and Universities founded and supported by the Episcopal Church: St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, NC and Voorhess University in Denmark, SC. And as we do so, to lift up the witness of Absalom Jones.
The Rev. Absalom Jones
Be honest, how many of you knew the name of Absalom Jones before this blog post? 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, but God had other plans. Though named after a tragic figure – Absalom, the ill-fated son of King David – this Absalom persevered, using the New Testament to teach himself to read. At 16 he and his mother and siblings were sold to a farmer, who turned around and moved to Philadelphia, taking Absalom and selling the rest of his family. Like so many, they were never reunited.
Absalom was allowed to attend a Free School, which was a nighttime school run by Quakers, and there 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 that he was sold again, Absalom married a slave girl named Mary King on January 4, 1770. Because children took on the status of their mother, Absalom wanted to be sure theirs would be born free, and by 1778 had purchased Mary’s freedom, though he remained enslaved. Perhaps moved by Absalom’s actions, or by the radical ideals of this new United States of America, Absalmon was manumitted by Mr. Wynkop, which is the process of an enslaver granting freedom to an enslaved person, in 1784. Afterwards he took the name Jones, which according to one story, was an indication of his fully American identity.
Finding hope and promise in Christianity, Absalom was involved in the Methodist Episcopal church and served as lay minister at St. George’s in Philadelphia, along with his friend Richard Allen. Together they listened to Jesus and established the Free African Society to aid in the emancipation of slaves and provide education, food, and other resources for newly freed folks. As a result, the Black membership of St. George’s exploded. You can probably guess what happened next. The white parishioners got uncomfortable, and the Vestry voted in 1792 to force Black worshippers to the balcony without any prior notice. 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. They walked out, never to return.
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 groups were turned away. The result was that the Methodist Church grew to become the largest denomination in America and many Black folks decided the Episcopal Church was not for them.
Absalom and Richard wanted to found a church where Black folks could worship freely. The result was First African Church in Philly, which still stands today. 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 it 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 and became its first bishop in 1816. The two of them remained lifelong friends and collaborators.
The choir sings at the historic African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in 2019 (photo courtesy of Facebook)
In 1802 Absalom Jones 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 took part in petitioning Congress on multiple occasions to end the Fugitive Slave Act, which not only forced runaway slaves back into bondage but often resulted in free folks being kidnapped and sold 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. though, continued to listen to Jesus. He was 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, 46 years before slavery was abolished.
I may look out from the pulpit on Sunday mornings and see a congregation of white folks, but that don’t mean this observance isn't for us; in fact, I’d say we desperately need to hold to 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. 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, when we listen to him. Blessed Absalom Jones, pray for us.
