On November 6, 1746, in a little town in Delaware, a remarkable baby boy was born and named Absalom. Born into slavery and separated from his family as a child, Absalom resolved early on not to let his masters control his fate. Even as a kid, Absalom saved his pennies to buy a Bible and a primer and learned to read. As an adult, he worked hard, saving money and fundraising, so he could free his wife from slavery. By the time he was 38, he’d managed to purchase his own freedom too.
He showed the same zeal helping others as he did in freeing himself. With his friend Richard Allen, Absalom founded the Free African Society. It was the first ever mutual aid organization run by and for Black people. Members paid monthly dues, which were then used to provide for the needs of the Black community, including purchasing the freedom of slaves. They also started holding religious services together with the help of a local Episcopal priest.
Absalom had been active at a Methodist church, where his charisma and enthusiastic evangelism had drawn crowds of Black folks. But when the White parish leaders tried to forcibly segregate the church, Absalom and the others walked out, worshippinginstead with the Free African Society. The Society was now a robust worshipping community in its own right. So they decided to incorporate as a parish within the Episcopal Church and became the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas—the first Episcopal parish specifically serving the Black community.
As a parish, St. Thomas’ took Absalom’s original vision for the Free African Society and ran with it. Within the first year they grew to more than 500 members. They continued their mutual aid work, established a day school for Black children, and were pivotal in promoting Black self-empowerment and the abolition movement.
And Absalom pastored this church from its beginning, even before he was ordained a priest in 1802. Much of his ministry was dedicated to preaching vigorously against slavery, calling slave owners to repent and proclaiming a message of hope to slaves and freed Black people alike. He was convinced that God always acted “on behalf of the oppressed and distressed.”
It was God who freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It was God who restored Samson’s strength to bring down the Philistines who kept him in chains. It was God who delivered Daniel from the lion’s den. It was God who brought the people of Israel out of exile, back to their home in Jerusalem. And it was that very same God who loved humanity so deeply that he became truly human, entering into profound suffering and even dying, in order to free humanity from captivity to death.
In a sermon at St. Thomas, celebrating the end of the Transatlantic slave trade in 1808, Absalom praised the God who heard the cries of the Israelites as the same God who heard the cries of Africans. Absalom was under no illusion that the fight for Black liberation was over, or even that he and his parishioners would benefit much from the end of the slave trade. He longed for complete freedom for all his people, and he knew that was a long way off.
It’s a familiar feeling, isn’t it? Every sweet victory we win in the fight against white supremacy is mixed with bitter tears over a Black boy killed in the street, a Native woman who disappears without a trace, an Asian man who’s beaten to death. We long for liberation, for healing, for true freedom for all of us, but it seems so far off.
But even as he faced the long battle ahead, Absalom was confident that it would be won. Maybe not in his lifetime. But it would be won. Because God is always on the side of the oppressed. Absalom looked at Scripture—looked back at history—and saw the same faithful God acting over and over and over again to rescue the oppressed and free the captive. And he saw that same God active in his own life and in his own time. This recognition of God’s faithfulness to his promises is what led Absalom to say, “The great and blessed event, which we have this day met to celebrate, is a striking proof that the God of heaven and earth is the same, yesterday, and to-day, and forever.”
It’s that conviction that God never abandons the oppressed that enabled Absalom—not only to endure the uncertainty of a long fight for freedom—but to rejoice in it. Even in the midst of an objectively bleak situation, Absalom looked back, saw God’s action in the world, and gave thanks for it, because he was convinced it would continue. And he called his people to give thanks as well. There is no more powerful witness to God’s certain vindication of the oppressed than the joyful songs of the destitute as they say, “the Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed.”
This joy in the midst of pain is a witness to the world and to future generations that the story is not over and never will be until the Lord brings every prisoner trapped in darkness out into the world as a light to the nations. It is the witness of our holy forebears, to us, of the deeds of God in their time. And it is our witness, to those who come after us, of the fact that God never leaves the side of those the world has cast aside.
The Letter to the Hebrews recalls us to this timeless message: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Our joy over God’s faithfulness throughout history is the fruit that Christ asks us to bear. Fruit that we taste when we abide in God and God in us. Fruit that we share with those who come before us and those who come after us. Fruit that will last.