The patron saint of the Diocese of Georgia, Deaconness Anna Alexander, has a story worth hearing every year. And this year, we followed the advice to celebrate her Feast Day (Sept. 24th) on the following Sunday...the last Sunday of September.
See what you think. And feel free to leave a comment.
Text: 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
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Today we’re marking the Feast Day of
Anna Ellison Butler Alexander…the patron saint of the Episcopal Diocese of
Georgia.
Her actual saint day was this past
Thursday…but diocesan churches are allowed…and strongly encouraged… to
celebrate her feast on a Sunday morning.
The bulletin has a brief biography about
her…and her legacy as the first and only black woman made a deaconess in the
Episcopal Church.
But there’s so much more to the story of
her life.
And given her experiences and the way
she went about lifting up the people of Pennick…I think it’s only appropriate
that those charged with the task of selecting the lectionary readings for her
Feast Day…settled on this reading from the Second Letter to Timothy.
Because for the time that she served as
a deaconess…Anna Alexander was “persistent whether the time was favorable or
unfavorable” and definitely demonstrated the skill of being able to “convince,
rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching.”
Anyone who has ever taught knows you
need equal parts of all those…and maybe even an extra dose of patience…when
giving instruction to another.
It reminds me of a story I heard about
my childhood next door neighbor.
Mister B…as we called him…was one of the
music teachers at the junior high school and taught band.
And he was without question one of the
coolest dudes on the junior high faculty.
He played the guitar, tenor sax and the
clarinet…and he rode a motorcycle to and from the school.
He had an easy-going demeanor…but he
also was demanding and not a pushover.
One day…one of the band students seemed
troubled and just not himself at all.
Mister B knew this kid’s path home.
And so he found him…sulking as he walked
past the Roman Catholic Church.
Mister B rode up alongside him.
He turned off the engine of his
motorcycle…and pushed it along as the two of them talked about what was going
on in this young man’s world.
Mister B listened to him…and then he
reminded this kid of the other parts of his story that he’d skipped over.
That this child was a pretty good
musician…and he would get better by coming to band class.
That level of concern…and
encouragement…helped turn that kid’s world around.
He was in his seat at the next band
class…and never missed another one for the rest of the year.
Teachers can have that sort of impact.
And Anna Alexander had that same drive
and desire to build up her community of Pennick, Georgia.
She came from a large family…the
youngest of eleven children.
Her parents had been slaves on the
Butler Plantation on St. Simon’s Island and when they were freed…the family
found land in nearby Pennick.
She and two of her sisters were the
founders of St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in Darien…but it was while she
attended a service at St. Athanasius in Brunswick that Anna had a vision of
starting a mission church in Pennick.
With the encouragement of the priest and
others at St. Athanasius….that dream became the reality of Church of the Good
Shepherd in Pennick.
Anna left Georgia in 18-97… to attend
St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School which later became St. Paul’s College
in Lawrenceville, Virginia.
St. Paul’s was a college founded by a
black Episcopal priest named James Solomon Russell…specifically to train black
teachers.
When she learned that The Church of the
Good Shepherd mission was in trouble…Anna came home to Pennick…
Now ”equipped with every good work”….she
began to revitalize the church and eventually…with help of one of her brothers
and local men…they built the schoolhouse on the property with logs and
clapboards.
Watching all of this was the Episcopal
Bishop of Georgia…C.K. Nelson.
He was impressed with her tenacity and
determination…using her sewing skills to raise the money she needed to support
her mission.
Nelson even made his own financial
contribution to help her build living quarters in the schoolhouse.
He saw in Anna the calling of a
deaconess…which at that time…was a lay order of church women who mostly worked
in schools and hospitals.
Bishop Nelson conferred on her that new
status of deaconess…making her the first…and only…black woman so recognized in
The Episcopal Church in the 20th century.
But nothing was easy for Anna Alexander.
Even though Bishop Nelson could see
something special in her work…the larger diocese was another matter.
In 1907…the Diocese of Georgia…which had
grown to be 108 missions and too large for one bishop…voted to split.
The northern and western parts of the
state became the diocese of Atlanta…and the central and southern parts to the
coast became the Diocese of Georgia.
Bishop Nelson moved to Atlanta.
And a new bishop…Fredrick Reese…was
elected as the 4th bishop of Georgia…at a time when Jim Crow laws
were coming into play in the secular society….and would spill over into the
church.
Black Episcopal congregations in Georgia
were segregated into the Council of Colored Churchmen and excluded from the
diocesan conventions until 19-47…the year that Anna Alexander died.
There was World War I.
And then the Great Depression of the
1930s.
And then World War II.
Not an easy time for anyone.
But…nevertheless…even in “unfavorable
times”…Anna Alexander persisted…never once letting other people’s prejudices
distract her from doing what she could for the people of Pennick…regardless of
their race.
She and her impoverished congregation of
Good Shepherd kept feeding the hungry…and caring for those in need…from the
blind and the elderly to the orphans and young mothers.
Anaa’s connections that she made while
in college helped her to find the financial resources beyond the diocese to
keep the school going.
She even took a job cooking at the
diocesan church camp in the summers…while having to create separate camping
opportunities for black boys and girls.
And while tuition was a nickel a week to
go to Good Shepherd school…Anna never turned anyone away.
The skills she had learned…first from
her parents who instilled in her the value of an education…then her own desire
to read and write….fueled her passion and her burning desire to see the
children of Pennick succeed.
She had taught before in the Brunswick
schools and had been disappointed with the public-school teaching materials.
She wanted something more for her
students…a chance to meet the God of Love that she found in the Gospels.
So with textbooks in short supply…she
had them pull out the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible…and used those to
teach kids their ABCs.
Anna took the lines of Second Timothy
seriously: the scriptures inspired by God are “useful for teaching…for
reproof…for correction…and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who
belongs to God may be proficient.”
And it worked.
Anna Alexander taught several
generations of Pennick children from kindergarten through high school.
When they reached the age to go to
college…she helped them apply to the historically black schools along the East
Coast…including her alma mater…St. Paul’s.
She drove them off to their college
campuses…opening up a world to them that wouldn’t have been possible without
her effort.
Anna’s students embarked on careers that
took them beyond the coastal plain of Georgia.
And even though the diocese of Georgia
had excluded her and other black members…Bishop Reese took the unusual step at
the 1930 diocesan convention to highlight what Anna was accomplishing in
Pennick.
He spoke of “the faith and courage and
persistency of this good woman.” and added, “I think that it is proper and just
that I should make this notice, because this woman is entitled to it, and
because her example is a good and encouraging one to all of us.”
It remains a good example for all of us
even today.
In the name of our One Holy and
Undivided Trinity.
History
drawn from various resources on the Diocese of Georgia website, especially
deaconessannaalexander.georgiaepiscopal.org, the YouTube video “A Life Beloved:
Deaconess Alexander,” and Charles Wohler’s write up on satucket.lectionary.org.
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