Absalom Jones
by dan robling
It is an honor to be with you today celebrating the life and ministry of Absalom Jones. It is a special honor for me to share Black African heritage with this man of God. Yes, I said Black African Heritage. One of my great-great-grandmothers was born a slave. I never met her. She passed on before I was born. I did know her daughter though, our Grandmother McDonald. When I think of Grandmother McDonald, I recall a woman with a sweet spirit. I am sure she learned and received that sweet spirit from her mother, a former slave.
Last week I heard Fr. Jon Coffey speak of Jesus as being a "revolutionary Jesus." I like that description. All of the lectionary scriptures for last week and the Gospel reading for today speak of healing, cleansing, and restoring. The "revolutionary Jesus" came to this world to turn it upside down, to change the world, to change nations, to change religions, and to remove evil from the hearts of men and women. He came to heal, cleanse, and restore.
I hope all of you are familiar with our book "Lesser Feasts and Fasts." In this book, specific days are designated for commemorating and celebrating the lives and ministries of great people that helped form our faith and the church. February 13 is the day designated for celebrating the ministry and remembering the witness of Absalom Jones. He was born a slave in Delaware during the year 1746. He died in Philadelphia in 1818. Absalom Jones was a revolutionary. He would not accept the lot that life handed him. He started his personal revolution by becoming self-educated.
Absalom Jones was owned by an Anglican family and attended church with them. An Anglican neighbor family owned a young woman. They all attended the same church. Absalom and Mary were married on January 4, 1770. Absalom raised donations and borrowed enough money to buy Mary’s freedom so their children, by law, would be freeborn. Absalom and Mary worked long hours and paid the debt in 1778. His owner allowed Absalom to also purchase his own freedom.
Absalom Jones became a lay-minister in a Methodist Church in Philadelphia. Several people from the black community began to attend the church where there was a black lay-minister. They assumed that they would receive a warm welcome. The white majority of church members became alarmed because of the growing number of black people attending the church. Their "Official Board," the equivalent of our Vestry met in secret and decided that blacks would have to sit in the balcony at the rear of the church while worshipping. The revolutionary Absalom Jones would have no part of that unjust ruling. He went to the front of the church and knelt to pray. A close friend wrote about watching the ushers carrying the prayerfully kneeling Jones from the church. All of the black members followed Absalom and left that church.
Absalom and his friend Richard Allen formed the Free African Society in Philadelphia "to support one another in sickness, and for the benefit of their widows and fatherless children." The FAS meeting place eventually became a church that remains steadfast to this day, the St. Thomas African Church.
In 1793, Philadelphia experienced a yellow fever epidemic, the largest in the history of the United States. The black community dedicated themselves to help the sick and dying people regardless of race. They formed a cart-driver (ambulance) brigade that is said to have carried to hospitals some of the white people who had carried Absalom Jones out of the Methodist church.
In 1794 St. Thomas African Church applied for membership in the Episcopal Diocese. Recognition was granted as St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. Absalom Jones was ordained as a deacon in 1795 and priest in 1802. He became the first ordained African American priest in the United States. He became known as the bishop of all black Episcopal Churches.
I am ashamed to admit as we honor Absalom Jones two hundred years after his ordination as a priest, that we have failed to continue his revolution at an acceptable pace and in an acceptable manner. Many of us will say that the church is a place where prejudice and racism does not exist. I say that we have a long way to go.
As a young Methodist preacher, I was assigned to five churches surrounding a county-seat town of fifteen thousand people. Our parsonage (rectory) was located in the town. The five churches were located fifteen to twenty miles in varied directions surrounding the town. While we were having a late Sunday lunch at home one afternoon, I noticed a large billow of black smoke. It appeared to be about two blocks away. We were in a residential area, so surely the fire was a neighbor’s house. I ran from the parsonage toward the burning house.
It was what we called a "shotgun house" in that neck of the woods. It was a long narrow house. The door opened into a living room. From the living room one would walk through a door into a second room. The second room in a shotgun house was either a dining room or bedroom. Walking through the second room one would find a third area divided into two small rooms, a small kitchen and a small bedroom.
The fire had started in the kitchen. I ran into the house and joined others carrying out furniture, clothing, and other personal belongings. We carried kitchen stuff first and worked our way to the front yard. We were able to remove most of the family belongings and placed them in the front yard.
As I placed the last article in the front yard, I stood up to rest my back and survey the situation. I was astonished to see a heretofore-unnoticed multitude of white people glaring at me as though they were going to kill me. I realized two things. The first thought occurring to me was that I was looking into the depths of the eyes of evil. The second realization was that everyone but my cousin (now Father Gordon Morrison) that had been carrying out items from the house was black. I cannot adequately describe the sickening feeling that came over me as the reality of the situation became clear.
I asked to meet the owner of the house. He stepped forward and extended his hand. He was the local black dentist. The good doctor had grown up in that community of hate. He left the community after high school and went to Chicago. He was able to find a job in Chicago where he worked his way through college and dental school. He was able to establish a successful dental practice in Chicago and was on his way to a life of comfort. Thoughts of the people back in the hate-filled community of his childhood haunted him. He kept thinking about his suffering people back home knowing that they could not get dental care from white dentists. Thoughts of their unbearable pain overwhelmed him. Even though he realized that his people could not pay for his services, he gave up his Chicago practice and life of comfort to return to his people. The "shotgun house" with its meager furnishings was all he had.
The call from Christ that I was answering was not limited to boundaries of my parish. It was a call to bring the world to salvation. I could not walk away from this good man and that evil multitude without taking a stand. I asked the Doctor what I could do to help. He said that I should meet Dr. A.M. Alcorn. Dr. Alcorn was the A.M.E. pastor and the leader of the local black community. The dentist invited me to the evening service and arranged an introduction to his pastor. Dr. Alcorn greeted us warmly and told us that there was something we could do to help. He said for us to come to a meeting that was scheduled for Wednesday evening of that week and we would learn about what we could do to help.
I will never be able to forget the significance of that meeting and how it has affected my life. The group was already assembled when we arrived. The Reverend Doctor Alcorn introduced us and said, "See, I have told you that there are other people who care." The group simultaneously knelt around us and gave thanks to God for our presence. I have never felt as honored, humbled, or as inadequate as in that moment. Those wonderful people were thanking God for sending a twenty-year-old preacher and his seminarian cousin to change the miserable conditions of their lives.
Dr. Alcorn advised us that there was one hospital in the entire county. The hospital was built and operated on tax revenues. The area was a submarginal area that, other than a few cotton fields, would hardly grow weeds. There were a few slave-wage industrial plants. People did not have insurance and few could pay medical bills. Four of the beds in the huge county owned hospital were designated for black patients.
If a fifth black patient came for care, he or she had a choice to die in the waiting room or go home to die.
The group’s concerns had peaked the week previous to our meeting. A black teenager had required emergency surgery. The only available bed for blacks was in a room with her dying mother. She suffered the pains of surgery and healing while enduring the agony of watching her mother die. The situation was intolerable.
As a twenty-year-old preacher that had been called to "save the world," I was equipped with fast answers for every situation. I suggested that Dr. Alcorn call for a meeting with the hospital administrator and the board of directors of the hospital. The truly wise Dr. Alcorn, a member of the board of trustees of Wilberforce University, advised me that he had requested a meeting and his request had been denied.
He suggested that as the pastor of five white churches, I would have the power to force a meeting with the hospital board.
A meeting was arranged in combination with other issues. I told the young girl’s story. I spoke of the four-bed situation and demanded change. I was advised that change would not occur. I reminded them that the situation was ungodly, immoral, and illegal. They laughed. I left.
They called a meeting of the townsfolk, some were my parishioners, at the Courthouse Square. The courthouse was one of those that had "colored only" drinking fountains and restrooms. I had been there many times to speak to various government agencies. People always reviled me for drinking at the "colored only" fountains. I always took time to do my "revolutionary thing" and get a drink. A consensus decision was made to hang (lynch) me. I sent my nineteen-year-old wife and eighteen-month-old son back to Indiana by bus to her mother’s house where they would be safe.
While I was waiting to be hanged, I received an urgent call from my boss. He was the Methodist District Superintendent (similar to the bishop of a diocese). He said that he needed to talk with me in his office immediately. He was curious about the situation and wanted to hear my side of the story. I told him the story as described to you today. He asked, "Do you know that they are going to hang you?" I replied in the affirmative. He asked what I planned to do about it. I told him that my plan was to be hanged.
I wanted my life and death to send a message that standing against the evils of prejudice and racism was worth dying for. He replied that he appreciated a preacher with a "social conscience." He concluded that having a preacher hanged at the Courthouse Square would reflect badly on the church. I was whisked quickly to a six-church parish in another county. Thank God he did! We would have missed this opportunity to share Absalom Jones Day at St. Stephen’s today.
Someone is thinking, "That is an interesting story, but that was forty years ago. We do not have racism in the church today."
Last year, a dear friend of mine, a faithful lady of color, went shopping for some new boots at Nordstroms. She came face to face with a white lady from her parish. They had interacted for fifteen years at their church. The white lady turned away refusing to acknowledge my friend. My friend was hurt and disappointed. After thinking about the incident until the following Sunday, she asked the white lady to explain the reason for the snub. The white lady replied, "I do not have a prejudice bone in my body. You were mistaken. I did not see you at Nordstroms." As they parted, the white lady inquired, "did you find some boots you liked?" My friend had not mentioned that she was shopping for boots.
Someone is thinking, "That was last year. We do not have racism in the church this year."
Well, let’s think about next year. Some of you are participating in a process for selecting new leadership for our diocese. I have heard that we are also searching to fill eight to twelve positions for priests. Next year after all of the positions have been filled and we have the same number of black priests in our diocese as we have now (zero), what will we say?" Perhaps we will say that we could not find "qualified black priests." Or maybe we will say, "You know that not all people are as enlightened as we are and the majority would just not be comfortable with a black priest."
Jesus did not say, "Feed my white sheep." He did not say, "Those among you that are white, feed my sheep." In Matthew 11:28 Jesus is quoted as having said, "Come unto me ALL who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." The "revolutionary" Jesus is an "inclusionary" Jesus. I just made up the word "inclusionary." I know it is improper, but I like the sound of a "revolutionary and inclusionary Jesus."
I realize that this has been a long sermon. Please listen to me with undivided attention for one more minute and I will close.
I have looked into the eyes of evil, escaped the hangman’s noose, and ducked the bullet whizzing past my head on its way to shattering the glass window behind me. I KNOW EVIL WHEN I SEE IT. I KNOW EVIL WHEN I HEAR IT. Prejudice and racism, at best, are subtle forms of hatred. Hatred in any form is evil. Evil in the heart of any person will prevent that person from knowing the full joy of the salvation that the "revolutionary and inclusionary Christ" died to provide.
As I read the Gospels through and through, I hear a gentle voice saying, "I love you. I love you all." The gentle voice continues, "Please love me." Remember that to love him with all of your heart, you must first love all of your brothers and sisters with all of you heart in the name of the one true God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen