Absalom Jones - Rector's Rambling for February 9, 2025

     On Thursday we celebrate Absalom Jones, the first black American ordained priest in the Episcopal Church.  Following is a biography of  him, cobbled together from www.satucket.com and 1997 Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

"In 1786 the membership of St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia included both blacks and whites. However, the white members met that year and decided that thereafter black members should sit only in the balcony. Two black Sunday worshippers, Absalom Jones (1746-1818) and Richard Allen (1760-1831), whose enthusiasm for the Methodist Church had brought many blacks into the congregation, learned of the decision only when, on the following Sunday, ushers tapped them on the shoulder during the opening prayers, and demanded that they move to the balcony without waiting for the end of the prayer. They walked out, followed by the other black members. 

     Absalom Jones conferred with William White, Episcopal Bishop of Philadelphia, who agreed to accept the group as an Episcopal parish. Jones would serve as lay reader, and, after a period of study, would be ordained a deacon (1795) and a priest (1802) and serve as rector. Allen wanted the group to remain Methodist, and in 1793 he left to form a Methodist congregation. In 1816 he left the Methodists to form a new denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).

 Jones was an earnest preacher.  He denounced slavery, and warrned the oppressors to “clean their hands of slaves.”  To him, God was the Father who always acted on “behalf of the oppressed and distressed.”  But it was his constant visiting and mild manner that made him beloved by his own flock and by the community.  St. Thomas Church grew to over 500 members during its first year. . . Jones was an example of persistent faith in God and in the Church as God’s instrument."

 St. Thomas African Episcopal Church continues to this day as a congregation in Philadelphia, their website being  www.aecst.org.  Today (February 9) at 4 PM Christ Church in Detroit is hosting the diocesan Absalom Jones celebration and all are invited.