Today the in the Episcopal Church we commemorate Richard Allen, the first Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, d. 1831*

                  Canticle 8: The Song of Moses

                                     (With the tense change 

                                 the past is made present) 

With your 

constant 

love you 

lead the

people you

redeem; 

with your might you bring them in safety to your holy dwelling; 

you bring them in and plant them…. 

* Richard Allen was born in 1760, the slave of a man named Benjamin Chew, a lawyer & later  chief justice of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvan-ia,  one of 4 states that call themselves Commonwealths, among them Kentucky, Mass-achusetts & Virginia, all 4 of which were original colonies or parts thereof.  As a child, Richard  his siblings and his parents, were sold to Stockily Sturgis, a plantation owner in Delaware  of whom Richard said “a uncon-verted but … what the world called a good master.” He was allowed to go to the  Methodist  Church where at age 17,  he underwent a conversion experience. Later, his owner,  having become convinced that slavery was wrong, gave him an opportunity to buy his freedom. (It may be wrong but still he still didn’t  want  to lose money on his investment!)

       The AME Church grew out of the Free Africa Society which Richard Allen founded in 1787 along with Absalom Jones and others. H  opened his first church in 1794 and  was elected the fist bishop in 1816.  The denomination grew and flourished because of the racism and segregation found even in the churches of the day. We celebrate  him today to remember how far we have come and how far we have yet to go to achieve a world in which all are free and treated equally with the dignity of the children of God.