The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter, St. Petersburg, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
The Feast of Absalom Jones ▪ February 14, 2021 (transferred)
John 15:12-15
While in my ethics class in seminary, I read the book Virtues and Values: The African and African-American Experience, by Peter Paris (2004). A few of my classmates expressed their disinterest in a topic that had nothing to do with them, since they were not black. Our professor quickly responded, “Ministry is not about you; it’s about all of the souls that God may lead to you, and who just might be embodied in skin with a hue like Jesus of Nazareth.”
Paris’ book examined fortitude as a human virtue, as a means of survival, and its inextricable connection to the theological virtue of faith. Paris offers that fortitude, with the ingredient of forbearance, the patient endurance while suffering injustice, functions subconsciously as a pre-seeded virtue for Africans and African-Americans strengthened by witnessing quiet strength in the face of ongoing acts of injustice. For in the face of oppression, it is only the hope that things as they are, will not always be—that enables a suffering people to hold on; to trust in; and to wait for, the Lord.
As one of two black seminarians in the class, I needed that book to help me to make sense of my own complicated relationship with my beloved church which, since its inception, has struggled to wrestle with its own entanglement with the sin of racism. As we commemorate the life and ministry of the blessed Reverend Father Absalom Jones, the first Black priest in the Episcopal Church, I offer you the human virtue of fortitude.
Born into slavery in Delaware in 1746, Absalom Jones was blessed with intelligence, having taught himself to read using the Bible. By the time he was 20, he had been brought to Philadelphia, by his Anglican master, and had been permitted to attend night school; attended St. Peter’s Episcopal Church with his master; and was allowed to marry a slave owned by another member of St. Peter’s. After years of failed attempts to purchase his own freedom, Jones was voluntarily freed by his master by manumission at the age of 38. Fortitude.
Fr. Jones, a holy man of great fortitude and faith, moved through challenging circumstances in his life and in the church. A devout Methodist, Jones worshipped in St. George’s Methodist Church in Philadelphia which opened its doors to people of African descent. There he served as a lay preacher with his life-long friend, Richard Allen. Under the dynamic leadership of Jones and Allen, the number of Black members at St. George’s increased, and so did the discrimination by church leadership.
In the confrontation of 1787, known as the St. George’s incident, without warning, the Black members were told to move to the “slave gallery” for worship, and Jones was physically removed from the place where he was praying. The entire group of black members walked out of St. George’s, and explored the Episcopal Church as a viable option for their worshipping community where they would be received without hostility.
In the face of discrimination and rejection and physical manhandling, Jones’ focused work was not about him; it was about restoring the dignity of the Black worshipping community and finding a place for them to worship the Lord whom Jesus called his friends, not his servants.
Co-founded by Jones and Allen, the building for the African Church of Philadelphia was dedicated in 1794. And when the congregation applied for membership in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania it was bold enough to require that their membership be contingent upon the licensing of Absalom Jones as a lay reader, and if qualified, his ordination as a minister. God moved through Jones’ congregation to help him to fully realize God’s vocational call on his life. Jones was ordained a deacon in 1796 and ordained a priest seven years later in 1802.
The Episcopal Church in the United States has its own legacy—a legacy stained by the sins of racism and slavery, in which our church, throughout her history, has mirrored the earthly role of oppressor to many, and not her true nature as the body of Christ—the divine liberator who set us all free from the bondage of sin. You and I are called to courageously confront and wrestle with that truth, as the Bishop of the Diocese of Atlanta, Bishop Robert Wright, says, “Without shame and without guilt.”
And, we can rejoice in God’s powerful movement through the unjust structures of society, as well as those structures within the church which mirrored those same unjust societal structures, in order to raise up from the bonds of slavery, a powerful leader, of God’s choosing, for the church. The legacy of Fr. Jones continues to manifest in ways that have forever transfigured the outward appearance of our beloved Episcopal Church, and have necessarily transformed her soul.
Brothers and sisters, before 1802, a Black priest in the Episcopal Church was unimaginable. At the time of God’s choosing, God, for whom all things are possible, made the unimaginable a reality. In 1989, 187 years after the impossible ordination of a former slave was made possible, Barbara Harris, an African-American woman, became the first woman to be ordained a bishop in the Anglican Communion. 213 years after the impossible ordination of a former slave was made possible, the first African-American presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, Michael Bruce Curry, was installed in 2015. 215 years after the impossible ordination of a former slave was made possible, Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows became the first African-American woman to serve as diocesan bishop in the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Indianapolis in 2017. And by the grace of God, on this day of the Lord in 2021, 219 years after the impossible ordination of a former slave was made possible, the living legacy of Fr. Jones manifests through this Episcopal priest, vicar of a new, vibrant and diverse congregation, and preaching in the pulpit of this Episcopal Cathedral. Thanks be to God!
You and I are commanded to love one another as Christ loves us, with compassion, for it is impossible to serve as powerful instruments of healing and reconciliation, across the many lines that divide the saints of God—race and class being only two of many. If we do what Jesus has commanded us to do, Jesus said that we are his friends. Here’s the thing; doing what Jesus has commanded can be really hard. But, true friendship is a mutual endeavor that we are challenged to nurture, even when it’s really hard. I am reminded of the hymn, “Oh what a friend we have in Jesus.” We need to examine how we show up in the world and how we reflect Christ’s light, or not, and ask ourselves if Jesus truly has a friend in us.
You and I must be willing to be vulnerable, and to risk having our hearts broken, as we seek deeper relationship with one another. We can do all of these things, with great intention, because by faith, we trust that through Christ, our broken hearts, and this broken world, will be restored to wholeness. God continues to send people, like Fr. Jones, whose very lives, embody fortitude tightly wrapped in unwavering faith. If we have the eyes to see them and the hearts to receive them, the lives of such people testify to the truth that in Christ, all things are being made new; that things as they are, will not always be. Hold on to; trust in; and wait for, the Lord.
In the midst of the ongoing physical and spiritual violence perpetrated by human beings whom we can see, and by the death-dealing virus which we cannot see, let us be willing instruments working to bring about God’s peaceable kingdom, empowered with the life-giving gospel message and the fire of the Holy Spirit poured out from our tongues; poured out from our hearts; and poured out, by God, as healing balm for this hurting and wounded world.
Amen.
